


the more things change

by deadseasalt



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Getting Together, Highkey Jealous Oikawa, M/M, National Team Setter Kageyama, Oikage Big Bang 2018, reverse slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-09-29 18:31:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17208695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadseasalt/pseuds/deadseasalt
Summary: “So let me get this straight. You went to the Meiji-Chuo game and saw your old crush and after watching Meiji bring Chuo to a crushing defeat, you realized you were still crushing on him big time?”Kageyama wishes he could spit in Tsukishima’s drink. “It’s not a crush.”Tsukishima laughs. “You poor dumb fuck.”





	1. yell upstream to let it fall

The old maple Kageyama passes by on his way to the train station is still drenched in the bright red of autumn, but soon it’ll shed its leaves, in preparation for the dull, dry months of the off-season. The sky is a beautiful, endless blue, cloudless for miles. The sun shines shyly on the pavement. It’s almost like the beginning of something new.

Ando always says October is the month in which he feels limitless, like he could do anything and everything. But Kageyama thinks Ando says what he says because they’ve never won an international competition. If they’d won, they’d know that September is the month of achieving the impossible, of feeling unconfined and infinite. And October, well. October is the month in which they’d square their shoulders and go even farther.

They’d lost though. Fourth place. “Good,” Coach had said. But not good enough.

Kageyama had thought this year would be the year. Their team wasn’t a new team; they’d been playing with each other for a couple seasons now, everyone was familiar with the way everyone moved, the way some of them would take risks or play conservatively, the way all of them thirsted for the same thing. Kageyama had polished his quick with Miya Osamu, had perfected the toss that Ushijima-san said he needed. And yet, the outcome was still the same.

So now he’s here, going back to FC Tokyo practice with defeat so heavy on his mind. It’s been two weeks, but Kageyama still feels a twinge of annoyance. Three years and no victory.

He gets on the Metro. Behind him, the doors grind shut and the train jolts into motion. Kageyama picks a seat across a woman reading a fantasy novel. The blue sky behind her glares at him. He doesn’t want today to be the beginning of something new, but it’ll have to be. There’s no use picking at old wounds. Kageyama leans his head against the window and closes his eyes, listening to the train as it crawls, syncopated, towards Ikebukuro.

~

FC Tokyo is supposed to be Kageyama’s home team, but Kageyama’s never really felt home at the Tokyo Gas Gymnasium. The locker rooms are too messy, with kneepads, water bottles, and gossip littered all over the floor, and the volleyball court is too cramped and dim. He’s only been gone for a couple months, but his teammates are already talking about people and places he’s never even heard of. They’re friendly to Kageyama, enough to make small talk and invite him out for drinks sometimes, but it’s different. Every time practice ends, Kageyama feels almost relieved.

It’s during these times, when Kageyama’s going through the motions of diving and spiking, blocking and digging – all the drills of early off-season practice – that he misses Karasuno the most. The warm spring nights of playing ball with the hills of Miyagi sprawled out behind them, the gym staying brightly lit until well past dinnertime. Hinata's foghorn of a voice shattering the gathered evening mists, Yamaguchi's encouragements dancing like a Common Jay butterfly around his heart.

When they break for lunch, Kageyama’s legs are yelling at him in protest, his knees nursing new bruises despite the protection, his quads straining as he walks back to the locker room. So he takes his time stretching while his teammates go ahead. By the time he joins them in the cafeteria, they’re already deep in conversation about the Meiji game that’s coming up.

“ – first home game of the season,” Nakamura is saying. “Against Chuo. Should be pretty good.”

“They’ve got a bunch of new people on the team, no?” asks Ueda, scissoring through a piece of fish with his chopsticks. “The right-side’s new, and the libero. Oh! And the setter. Sources say he’s a nasty piece of work.”

Kageyama sits down in the only vacant seat left and starts digging into his rice. He rarely keeps up with varsity competitions. The only games he’d been to were Tsukishima’s, and that was only because Yachi insisted on going to support him.

“They also say he’s hot and popular,” Komatsu says. “That means the girls will be there.”

Nakamura shoots Komatsu a look. “We don’t go to varsity games for the girls.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Komatsu says cheerfully. “But I certainly do.”

“I think he’s older,” Ueda says, taking out his phone and typing something in it. “A grad student. Which is kind of surprising that they’ve only started using him this year.”

“Maybe he was in another university?” Nakamura’s finished giving Komatsu the death glare and is back to taking bites out of his sandwich. “Some school from farther away?”

“I doubt it.” Ueda frowns at his phone. “Have you seen his serves? They’re insane. There’s no way this guy could have stayed hidden from the league if he’d played in undergrad.”

Kageyama pauses in his eating. It’s gotten hard for him to swallow; his throat is so strangely dry. He sets down his chopsticks and clasps his hands together underneath the table. He hadn’t even realized they were shaking.

Miya Osamu looks over. “What’s his name?”

Komatsu waves a hand. “Kawa-something, I think?”

“Oikawa Tooru.” His voice cracks when he says the name, but he hopes he’s quiet enough so the rest of the team doesn’t notice.

“Yes, exactly!” Komatsu crows, flinging rice everywhere as he abandons his chopsticks in excitement.

“I didn’t know you followed Meiji volleyball, Kageyama,” Nakamura says evenly.

“I don’t.”

“Bullshit!” Komatsu shouts. “How else would you know the name of their new setter? There’s nothing wrong with liking varsity volleyball, Kageyama! They have really good games sometimes.”

Kageyama scowls, even though he feels like he’s going to be sick. “I knew him. From before. We were from the same prefecture.”

Komatsu’s jaw drops, and it’s a few seconds before he manages to close it again. “Ooooooh, big rivals? Who won?”

“Nobody did.” And it feels like a lie. Oikawa-san would always win. Even when Kageyama had been the one who was advancing to play Shiratorizawa, Oikawa-san had stepped up to him after the match and said, “it’s 1-1. Don’t get on your high horse.” Kageyama still remembered everything about his face, the sweat dripping from his chin, his cheeks red with exhaustion, and his eyes, narrowed with resolution to become even better even faster, determined to slip out of Kageyama’s reach once again. “It was a tie,” Kageyama clarifies, after a moment.

“Huh.” Komatsu kicks his chair back so he’s lounging on just two of its legs. “He must be really good then, considering the fact that you’re national setter.”

Kageyama tries swallowing again, but it’s still hard. “You have no idea.”

“I will by tonight! You wanna come, Kageyama? It’ll be nice to meet up with old friends, talk about the old times.”

“Oikawa-san and I were never friends.” And Kageyama doubts Oikawa-san would want to talk about past victories and losses with him, about how Kageyama almost stole Oikawa-san’s volleyball from him, that one time in middle school and then in Spring High.

“Oh, come on.” Komatsu pulls a face. “That was in high school. Things have probably changed.”

Maybe, but maybe not. If there’s one thing that’s predictable about Oikawa-san, it’s the way he holds onto grudges, and Kageyama is a grudge he’s held on to for a long time. But if there’s one thing that’s predictable about Kageyama, it’s the way he’ll do anything to hold onto Oikawa-san. Anything to keep the competition going until he can win. And Oikawa-san had said it was 1-1 between them, hadn’t he?

“I’ll come,” Kageyama says, and closes his eyes.

~

The Meiji University Gymnasium is already packed with spectators when the F.C. Tokyo team arrive. The stands are a sea of purple, churning with anticipation under the bright fluorescent lights that flood the stadium. Theirs seats aren’t the best, too high in the stands, but Kageyama supposes it can’t be helped; Komatsu only ordered their tickets during a “bathroom break” late into the afternoon. They’re lucky to have seats at all.

It’s been a while since Kageyama’s been to a game as a spectator instead of an opponent. He used to go to Tsukishima’s games at Toodai. But Tsukishima had quit his team after his second year of university, so Kageyama and Yachi had stopped going. Even so, he doesn’t remember this big of an audience at Tsukishima’s games, and Toodai has to be as popular as the two schools playing tonight.

Before he can think more about this, the overhead screen lights up with the words, “ARE YOU READY?” And the crowds around him roars an affirmative. The stadium trembles with excitement, and the screen blinks and tells the crowd, “LET’S GIVE THE HOME TEAM THE WELCOME IT DESERVES!”

The screams continue as the players come out one by one – Fukatsu, Onodera, Ishii – all waving all grinning. To Kageyama’s right, Komatsu is clapping with a stunned look on his face. “I wish we had a crowd like this!”

But the applause Fukatsu and the others get is nothing compared to when number thirteen comes on. “Setter.” the announcer has to raise his voice to be heard over the cheers. “Oikawa Tooru.”

It’s hard to see Oikawa-san from where he’s sitting, so Kageyama watches the screen, his heart like a heavy rock sitting on his stomach. And there he is, blowing kisses to the spectators squealing at him. His skin is pixelated and pale against the deep violet Meiji jersey he’s wearing, his hair a little shorter than it had been in high school, even though his shoes and white knee brace are the same. As Oikawa-san slows to a stop next to his teammates, he smiles, and the crowd erupts into even louder screams. Meiji’s number twelve rolls his eyes and reaches over to ruffle Oikawa-san’s hair. Oikawa-san leans into the touch. They both laugh. And Kageyama remembers, with startling clarity, that Oikawa-san is new to this team, that he’d only started playing in the late spring. To gain this much popularity and this much rapport from his teammates in such a short time is something Kageyama would never be able to do.

The stadium quietens down as the Chuo players are introduced, and then it’s warm up, with Meiji taking the court first. Kageyama watches carefully as Oikawa-san feeds his spikers tosses. They look like they’re nothing special, but Kageyama knows that Oikawa-san is giving the spikers the tosses that they need. He knows from the resounding slam of the ball from a spike by Meiji’s ace. Kageyama is sitting too far away, but he’s pretty sure Oikawa-san is smirking as he gives the right-side another perfect set.

Kageyama had once told Hinata that setting was what he loved the most because while it’s quieter and more inconspicuous than spiker, the setter gets to be the control tower and manipulate the game into something beautiful and powerful. Looking at Oikawa-san turn something as simple as spike-feeding into a mesmerizing display of power and control, Kageyama remembers the reason he wants to be setter.

Oikawa-san had always been the reason.

Or, at least, one of the biggest reasons.

He still, apparently, is.

The thought makes Kageyama feel sick to the stomach.

“Holy shit, look at that serve!” Ueda’s shout jolts Kageyama out of his head. He glances at the court. Meiji is practicing their serves now. Oikawa-san is poking Number Eight on the nose and laughing. Number Eight scowls and bats Oikawa-san’s hand away. He stalks back to the end of the court to serve. Oikawa-san, still laughing, follows him.

And then Oikawa-san is spinning the ball in his hand, and he’s tossing it up, and it’s hard for Kageyama to breathe as he watches Oikawa-san’s muscles coil, his arms collecting power, his body twisting as he jumps, sending the ball exploding to the other side. It’s a meteor, a missile, and over before Kageyama knew it. Kageyama replays the serve in his mind even though it makes him feel like he is imploding, his organs sucked in and detonating. The serve’s trajectory is sharper and cleaner than he remembers, the timing and Oikawa-san’s form entirely different. Kageyama catches the distinctions because he has spent lifetimes trying to copy Oikawa-san’s old serves in the sidelines.

Oikawa-san serves again.

The sound of the ball hitting the ground is deafening. It drives away the implosion in Kageyama’s chest and leaves a hollowness in its wake. The hollowness is new and old at the same time. It reverberates and rattles against the empty spaces between Kageyama's ribs, echoes past the memories of Oikawa-san can you please teach me, almost painful but not quite, leaves more empty places behind.

The whistle blows. Kageyama lets his eyes follow Oikawa-san as he walks off the court with his teammates. For a split second, Oikawa-san tilts his head back and glances in Kageyama’s direction, and it’s almost as if he sees Kageyama, because he smiles, slow and feral.

No way, Tobio-chan.

~

“So let me get this straight. You went to the Meiji-Chuo game and saw your old crush and after watching Meiji bring Chuo to a crushing defeat, you realized you were still crushing on him big time?”

Kageyama wishes he could spit in Tsukishima’s drink. “It’s not a crush.”

Tsukishima laughs. “You poor dumb fuck.”

Kageyama doesn’t know why he keeps agreeing to meet Tsukishima and Yachi for coffee on Tuesdays. Well, he’d be perfectly happy to meet Yachi for coffee every day if their schedules allowed it, but all Tsukishima does whenever they go out is laugh at some thing Kageyama’s done. It’s annoying, and Kageyama could live without it, but here he is, sitting opposite Tsukishima clutching his regular flat white in his hand, wanting to splash it onto Tsukishima and ruin his awful crisp white shirt.

“Well, what is it then?”

“What?” He must have missed what Tsukishima had said when he was imagining the beautiful brown stain down Tsukishima’s front.

“If it’s not a crush, what is it?”

“It’s – ” he breaks off. He wants to say they’re rivals, but that’s not quite true, is it? Not when they’re not competing against each other anymore. They haven’t been competing against each other for years. And yet – “I want to be better than him.”

“Boring~” Tsukishima says, rolling his eyes. “You’re so predictable, King.” He puts on a falsetto to imitate Kageyama. ‘“The first game, the second game, the playoffs, the nationals, Oikawa-san…I’m going to win them all!’”

“I think wanting to be better than Oikawa-san is a perfectly good goal,” Yachi says. She gives Kageyama’s knee a reassuring pat from underneath the table. “He’s a great player, isn’t he? It’s normal to want to be better than him.”

Tsukishima takes a drag of black coffee from his reusable straw. “But our King here is national setter. He’s already supposed to be better than him.” He offers Kageyama a challenging look. “He’s supposed to have moved on.”

“I have moved on.” Kageyama says. Their waitress comes back with their food. Kageyama smiles at her as a thank you, and she flushes red before leaving.

“Ugh, your smile gives me the creeps.” Tsukishima gives a gigantic shudder before picking up some spaghetti with his fork. “If you have moved on, you wouldn’t have gone to the game at all.”

“I was curious about the game. I haven’t been to an inter-varsity since you quit your team.”

“Sure you were. But you were curious about the game because your favourite senpai was in it.”

“My favourite senpai is Suga-san,” Kageyama says. “And he definitely wasn’t there.”

Tsukishima snorts. “If Suga-san had known you were going to be at the Meiji game to watch Oikawa with a lovestruck face, you’d be his favourite kohai for sure.”

“I’m not – ”

“Suga-san seems to be doing well, isn’t he?” Yachi asks hurriedly, pushing a plate of cookies towards Kageyama. “I heard that he’s in Kyushu right now. He’s been super busy doing environmental justice work.”

Tsukishima spares Yachi a smile. It’s soft, fond, containing none of the nastiness he usually sends towards the rest of humanity. “Suga-san is probably terrorizing his employees into buying environmentally friendly straws with his scary personality. Like he did with me.” He knocks his own straw against his glass as if to prove his point.

“I didn’t know you were scared of Suga-san, Tsukki,” Yachi says, teasingly.

“I’m not!”

Yachi giggles. “You totally were!” She glances at Kageyama and pats his knee again as Tsukishima sinks into a self-defensive silence. “Don’t worry though. Everyone was scared of Suga-san at one point.”

The sun is out in full force when they leave the café. Tsukishima ducks into the Metro immediately, saying he had a tutoring session with a first-year law student at four, and Yachi wishes him good luck with teaching while Kageyama prays for the poor, unsuspecting student. When Tsukishima’s gone, however, Kageyama’s at a loss for what to do. He wants to spend more time with Yachi, but doesn’t know how to say it. Usually Tsukishima is the one who stays when Kageyama has to leave.

“Er,” he says, turning around. Yachi is digging around in her bag, and the sun is tugging at her blonde hair just so that it glows, and she looks really, really beautiful like this. “Do you – ”

“Found it!” Yachi exclaims. She’s holding up an old-fashioned film camera, looking triumphant. “I have to take some pictures or my next project. Do you want to come with?”

Kageyama startles, and it’s a couple seconds before he realizes what Yachi just said. Then he smiles, relaxing, and Yachi smiles back, nodding in encouragement. “What’s the project on,” he asks.

Yachi brings her camera up and points it at Kageyama, and she’s reaching for the shutter and pressing down. Snap. She’s beaming when she brings the camera back down again. “It’s on beautiful things,” she says, and winds her camera up for a new shot.

They take the train to Harujuku, and follow the teeny-bopper crowd up the elevator to Takeshita Dori. Before they get to the exit, Yachi snaps a picture of the people coming out, their brightly-dyed hair illuminated by the afternoon light. “And I thought Shouyou’s hair was unusual,” she says, her eyes huge.

Harujuku is a place in Tokyo Kageyama’s never visited before. It just sounded…extra to him. Teen girls dressed in Lolita clothing and sparkly gelled nails taking selfies next to fancy crepe shops, boutiques selling yellow and black polka-dot raincoats and life-sized china dolls, stalls crammed to the brim with black t-shirts screaming out band names. It’s a Tuesday afternoon, but the street is packed. One of Yachi’s hands close around Kageyama’s wrist. A small comfort.

They’re turning down one of the side streets when Yachi finally says, “So, did you actually go see the Meiji match because of Seijoh’s setter?”

“I don’t know,” Kageyama says, slowly. “I went with my team, and they were definitely there to see him.” He pauses, frowning, as Yachi lets go of his wrist to take a picture of the sign of a tattoo parlour. “Why are you asking me this again? I already gave Tsukishima an answer.”

Yachi crouches to get another shot. “I guess I didn’t know if you were comfortable with telling Tsukki what actually happend.”

“I’m not.”

“So what actually happened,” Yachi asks pointedly, getting up. She holds out her hand again. Kageyama just stares at it, frustrated.

“I don’t know,” he says again, “I don’t see how it’s a big deal. I didn’t know he was on the Meiji roster until the day of the match.” He hadn’t thought about Oikawa-san for years before that. But when he knew Oikawa-san was playing, Oikawa-san was all he could think about. He doesn’t want to tell Yachi that, though. “We didn’t talk during the game. I’m not going to let him get to me on the court again, if that’s what you’re worried about. We don’t even play each other anymore.”

Yachi slips her hand into Kageyama’s and squeezes it. “I’m not worried about that at all.”

Kageyama squeezes back. There are so many things about people that he doesn’t understand. This didn’t used to bother him, back in high school, but now, being on the national team, ball suddenly, ironically, isn’t everything. There are press conferences and interviews, reporters crowding him at airports asking him how he feels about the defeat delivered by the USA, or whether he has any words for that setter on the Turkish team who got injured halfway through the second set, or what he does when he’s not playing volleyball. And Kageyama would struggle through his responses every time, even though the PR team had coached him through his answers, even though sometimes he just literally had to say, “me too.” Kageyama had spent hours memorizing Oikawa-san, but he just couldn’t understand him, or his own feelings about him. Voicing them out would be too hard. If this happened during an official press con, Coach would berate him for being too hesitant or vague on his answers, but this wasn’t a press con. This was just Yachi, trying to understand, not being pushy about it.

As they push their way back onto the main street, Kageyama says, “Hey, Yachi-san,” before he can fully process the words coming out of his mouth. “Do you really think I should let it go, like Tsukishima said?”

“Well,” Yachi says, giving his hand another squeeze. It’s darker now, nearing dusk. The shadows lurking between the lampposts make it harder for Kageyama to see Yachiface, but he thinks she’s smiling. “You never got him to teach you his serve, did you? I don’t think you should give up now.”

Yachi doesn’t bring up Oikawa-san again for the rest of their walk, so Kageyama doesn’t either. He relaxes into the lights and people flooding the main street and lets Yachi steer him into a shop to take a picture of butterfly hair clips that glow in the dark. She doesn’t want to use flash for the photo, so she takes forever to get the settings on the camera right. Kageyama just stands next to the shopkeeper and watches as she tries to get a still of a million fake butterflies blinking in and out of existence. He could tell the press this the next time they ask him what he does in his spare time. He could tell them he goes to Harujuku to stop thinking about his old senpai while his best friend flits around taking pictures of beautiful things.

~

The next Meiji game falls on a Sunday. A day in which Tsukishima is free and insists upon going with Kageyama and Yachi. It’s chilly when Kageyama meets up with them in the Metro station after practice. The wind nipping at the nape of his neck makes him wish he’d brought a scarf, and his face falls when he sees Tsukishima warmly wrapped up in a muffler, a smug look nested between two folds of purple wool.

“Hi Kageyama!” Yachi, at least a foot and a half shorter than them both, looks small and happy in a baby pink poncho.

“Hi,” Kageyama says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his tracksuit. His fingers had been flaming when practice ended, but the cold has chased away the burn, leaving just a little more than numbness in its wake.

Tsukishima eyes Kageyama’s FC Tokyo uniform coolly. “You know, when you’re going to a game to support a team’s setter, you usually wear his school colours.”

“I’m not going there to support anyone,” Kageyama snaps.

“Hmmm,” Tsukishima hums, dragging the sound into an upward inflection so it feels as derisive as possible. “I suppose you’re just ‘curious about the game?’”

“Tsukki,” Yachi interjects. “He’s tired. He just got off from practice. And besides, I’m not wearing anyone’s colours either.”

Tsukishima’s expression flickers, and Kageyama stares as his ears go a little red. “You’re wearing blush, which is exactly your colour.”

Yachi also flushes red. “Oh,” she says in a small voice.

Oh, Kageyama thinks, a little belatedly. They’re dating. Or, at least, they will be soon.

Tsukishima coughs, and he lowers his gaze so the light reflects on his glasses just right to hide his eyes. “Are we going to the game or not?”

The ride to Meiji feels normal. Yachi tells Kageyama about the new art exhibit coming up while Tsukishima plugs in his headphones and stands a little to the side to rest his head against the door. When Kageyama starts telling her about his new practice schedule, about Ueda and Komatsu’s new prank on the coach, he can’t help but notice her surreptitiously glancing at Tsukishima. He breaks off, unsure of whether to continue or not, and Yachi doesn’t even realize he’s stopped talking. Kageyama doesn’t know how he feels about this, exactly. Not that it should matter. He thinks he might be happy for them, but, at the same time, something incredibly like loneliness wells up in his stomach.

Because the memory of him and Yachi taking pictures in Harujuku, and the memory of all three of them getting Tuesday Coffee at that café by the Tokyo Gas Gymnasium, had felt so important. And Kageyama remembers things using muscle memory, everything stays and goes through use and disuse. If Yachi and Tsukishima start dating, it will be hard for Kageyama to ask Yachi out to take photos again, and maybe they won’t want him there with them for Tuesday Coffee anymore, and maybe, if they start seeing each other seldomly enough, Kageyama’s musculature will change, and he’s afraid he’ll forget that time Tsukishima had been startled into laughter at a joke Kageyama had told. He’d laughed for at least five minutes, holding onto the edge of the table, trembling, as Yachi sipped her cappuccino, grinning from ear to ear.

The wind has picked up when they get off the train, and Kageyama brushes off the unwelcome thoughts into the breeze as Yachi shivers and pushes at him and Tsukishima to “hurry, Hurry! It’s so cold!” The stadium in comparison is heated up with the sheer amount of people packed together in the stands, already cheering even though the game hasn’t started yet. Their seats are closer to the front this time, right next to the referee so they get a full side view of the court. Kageyama almost trips over someone’s foot as they fight their way to their places, bumping into Tsukishima as he tries to steady himself.

“Watch it,” Tsukishima says, sharply.

“Sorry,” Kageyama mutters, both to Tsukishima and the person he tripped over.

“It’s good manners to look at the person you’re apologizing to, Kageyama.”

Kageyama blinks and looks up. “Daichi-san!” Yachi exclaims.

Daichi-san grins. “Yo. How’s my favourite underclassman doing?”

“What are you doing here?” Kageyama blurts out.

“We’re here to support Waseda of course!” Daichi-san plucks at his maroon sweater. “Gotta show some school pride.”

“We?” Tsukishima looks over from Kageyama’s other side. “Who’s we?”

“Tsukishima!” Daichi-san says, looking delighted, just as Iwaizumi-san peeks out behind Daichi-san. “It’s been how many years now? Four? Five? Heard you used to play for Toodai.”

“Six, actually, since you graduated.” Tsukishima glances at Iwaizumi-san coolly. “Seijoh’s ace. You’re the we?”

“There is no we,” Iwaizumi-san says. “I’m just here to annoy Oikawa by not wearing his team colours.”

“It’s strange to see you not yelling at someone.”

“It’s strange to see you not looking as though you’ve smelled something bad, Glasses-kun.” says Iwaizumi-san levelly.

“Hey,” Daichi-san interjects, even though the corner of his mouth is twitching. “We’re all here to have a good time.”

“That’s right,” Yachi says, nodding viciously. “Don’t go ruining the game for the rest of us.”

“Who are you supporting, Yacchan?” Daichi-san asks, just as the commentator starts announcing Meiji’s lineup for the game.

“I-er” Yachi glances at Kageyama. Kageyama looks away towards the court, where the ace is being introduced. Yachi raises her voice to be heard over the cheers. “I’m going to support the underdog.”

“That’s a good team,” Iwaizumi-san says, nodding. He glances at the crowd and sighs. “That’s regretfully not going be Oikawa’s team.”

“Oikawa’s team has been having a winning streak since the start of the season,” Tsukishima says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Oikawa has won 23 points with his serves alone. Waseda is going to have a hard time, I think.”

“You looked up the stats?” Kageyama tries not to sound impressed.

Tsukishima shrugs as excited screams flood the arena. “Someone has to do the research.”

It’s Kageyama’s second time seeing Oikawa-san in a little more than a week, but it feels like it’s the first. Oikawa-san is different; he isn’t smiling in this game. He’s got blank expression on his face when it’s his first turn to serve, and he gets four aces in before his fifth lands outside the court by half an inch. By the time the first set point rolls around, Oikawa-san has won his team two additional points with setter dumps, and, in the end, takes the set for them by spiking a toss the libero gives him. The entire gymnasium is an uproar.

Iwaizumi-san is cheering along, too, despite having told them he’d be supporting the other team. “He’s being flashy but focussed!” He yells at Daichi-san. “This is peak Oikawa!”

Daichi-san pulls a face. “So much for rooting for Waseda.”

“I never said I’d be rooting for them.”

Kageyama watches as Oikawa-san throws a towel over his head and sits down on the opposite end of the bench, away from his team. One of the team managers holding the water bottles hesitates as he passes by him, but decides not to hand him one, opting to set the bottle next to him instead. Kageyama’s seen Oikawa-san concentrate like this during one of their middle school matches. The game had been against Shiratorizawa, and Kitagawa Daiichi was down two-nothing. Oikawa-san had sat down next to Kageyama because there wasn’t space anywhere else. He’d been breathing hard, his fists clenched so tight his knuckles turned white. Kageyama had shivered in the hot gym as their arms touched.

“Why is he playing so hard against Waseda, though?” Iwaizumi-san is saying. “Meiji’s winning easily.”

“Maybe he’s putting on a show?” Daichi-san suggests. “Oikawa does love being showy.”

“He’s not even interacting with the audience, though,” Iwaizumi-san points out as the whistle blows and Oikawa-san stalks back onto the court. “I think the audience tonight would rather him be pretty and charming rather than moody and intense.”

“I guess he just feels like it then,” Daichi-san says as Waseda’s pinch server sends the ball whizzing into the net. He sighs. “Meiji’s going to win by a landslide.”

And Meiji does. 3-0, beating Waseda by at least ten points each set. Kageyama stays seated even as everyone else stands and cheers for the home team. He feels paralyzed, especially when he hears two girls behind him say, “Why isn’t Oikawa-san our national setter? He’s way better than the one we have right now.” Oikawa-san was stunning in the game, and the toss he gave in the match point, a backward cross-court with pinpoint accuracy that seemed to suspend the spiker in mid-air along with it, was a toss Kageyama had wanted to perfect for Ushijima-san last season but never did.

Daichi-san must have seen his face, because he leans down and asks, “Are you okay, Kageyama?”

“I’m – ” Kageyama’s voice is scratchy even though he hasn’t been screaming like the rest of the spectators. He clears his throat. “I’m okay.”

Daichi-san narrows his eyes, but he says, “Okay.” Then he’s tugging at Kageyama’s arm. “Let’s move before the everyone does. It’s going to be chaos then.”

“Okay,” Kageyama echoes, following Daichi-san out.

The darkness and quiet outside the stadium is dazzling. Only a few people are milling around the exit of the stadium. Daichi-san and Iwaizumi-san lead them to a bench a couple hundred feet away. Iwaizumi-san plops down on the bench, while Daichi-san pulls a bottle of water out of his backpack, taking a few sips before putting it back in. Kageyama tugs his jacket closer to get away from the cold. They’re all silent as they wait for Yachi and Tsukishima to join them.

It’s a few minutes before they arrive, and when they do, the stadium exit is already swarming with people. Yachi looks like she’s brimming with excitement as she bounds towards them. Tsukishima trails behind more slowly.

“That was a really good game, wasn’t it?” she asks.

Daichi-san grimaces. “It’s good if you’re a Meiji fan. They absolutely destroyed Waseda. I thought you were going to support the underdogs, Yacchan.”

Yachi shakes her head. “I changed my mind because Oikawa-san was so cool. He really helped the team focus. What did you think, Kageyama?”

“I - ” Kageyama blinks, caught off guard by having been asked a question. For a brief moment, he considers the answer he would have given an eager journalist under Coach’s close supervision: a diplomatic one, one that shows his appreciation for some of the plays Oikawa-san’s made but also offers some constructive criticism on how the game could have been better. But it feels wrong, he doesn't even have any constructive criticism to make, and his heart is beating too painfully in his chest for him to think. “He was amazing.”

Daichi-san laughs. “You haven’t changed at all, Kageyama. ‘Amazing,’ even after all this time?”

“Yes.”

“You looked like you were about to throw up, though.”

“I’m fine.”

“If you say so,” says Daichi-san dubiously. He checks his phone. “We’re going to meet Oikawa for a late dinner tonight. Do you guys want to join?”

“No,” Tsukishima says bluntly.

“What Tsukki means,” Yachi hurries to say, “is that he has an early class tomorrow, so it’s better if he went home early. I have a thesis deadline coming up, so I should probably go back to the studio.”

Daichi-san’s face falls. “That’s unfortunate.”

“But,” Tsukishima says, still sounding impassive, even though a smirk is slowly making its way across his face, “the King can go. He doesn’t have practice tomorrow. A late night or two won’t do him any harm.”

Kageyama furrows his brows. “How did you-”

“Please.” Tsukishima rolls his eyes. “We see each other every week. I probably have your schedule memorized better than you do.”

“You see each other every week?” Daichi-san asks. “That’s -”

“Point being,” Tsukishima cuts in, “Kageyama would be happy to have dinner with you and Oikawa.”

“I-”

Tsukki,” Yachi whispers. “Shouldn’t Kageyama have a say about this?”

Kageyama really doesn’t want to have dinner with Oikawa-san, because Oikawa-san would probably spend the entire meal either ignoring him or calling him names. “Genius,” Oikawa-san would sneer. “Dictator-chan.” And Kageyama would have to sit next to him and try not to notice the annoyed looks coming his way, the long drape of Oikawa-san’s fingers on the table, the fall of Oikawa-san’s hair in his face, the way he’d be close enough to touch.

Kageyama would much rather eat lunch with Tsukishima every Tuesday for the rest of his life.

“Wow, didn’t know you loved our lunches so much, King. I feel extremely grateful to have Your Majesty’s seal of approval.”

So Kageyama had said the last bit out loud. Maybe he’d said the bit about Oikawa-san out loud as well. He feels his cheeks growing hot, and he looks at Tsukishima for any indication that he’d said something embarrassing. Tsukishima looks like a cat that just got the canary. But then, Tsukishima’s always like this when Kageyama’s done something stupid, and admitting to rather having lunch with Tsukishima is a really stupid thing. So maybe Tsukishima hadn’t heard after all.

Kageyama must have done something, though, because Tsukishima sighs, unravels his scarf and holds it out to Kageyama. "Here," he says, "wear this. I bet you didn't check the weather before you left home. It's going to get colder tonight. And besides, Yachi says the purple will bring out the colour of your eyes."

“I never said that,” Yachi counters. “But it does. Purple goes well with blue.”

Kageyama takes the scarf and puts it around his neck. He’s instantly warmer, and his heart, which was still beating fast, slows down a little. “Thanks, I guess.”

Tsukishima rolls his eyes again as he and Yachi turn back to the Metro station. “You’re welcome. I guess.”

“Wait, Tsukishima,” Daichi-san says, putting away his phone. He must have been checking for messages. “We’ll come with you. We’re meeting Oikawa at the izakaya anyway.”

~

The izakaya Daichi-san takes them to is two stops away, brightly lit and welcoming. The owner of the place knows Daichi-san, and pauses in his work to talk to him and Iwaizumi-san after the waiter takes their orders. Recognition flashes in his eyes when he notices Kageyama.

“Kageyama Tobio,” he says, nodding. “Good job during Worlds this year.”

Kageyama stands up and bows. “Thank you. We will do better next year.”

“You’re very polite,” the owner observes as Kageyama sits down again, “even though you have such a scary presence on court.” He turns back to Daichi-san. “How did you know each other.”

Daichi-san grins. “I was his senpai from high school.”

Iwaizumi-san elbows Daichi-san. “I was his better senpai.”

Someone drops a bag into the seat next to Kageyama. “And I was his best senpai.”

Kageyama’s chest constricts violently. His vision blurs. He’d spent the train ride telling himself that it was just dinner, that he was ready to face Oikawa-san as equals. But he isn’t ready. He never is. Kageyama feels dizzy, overwhelmed. Oikawa-san is so close Kageyama can smell him: sweat and salonpas, leather and gym disinfectant, mixed in with the new smell of something clean, aseptic. “Oikawa-san,” Kageyama says, and hears his voice breaking.

Oikawa-san sits down next to him, and Kageyama turns away. “Four beers please,” Oikawa-san says, his hand flitting into Kageyama’s periphery as he reaches for the menu.

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi-san says. “Four? We already ordered for ourselves.”

“I know, Iwa-chan, you stingy scrooge,” Oikawa-san says. “Don’t worry. One of them is for Tobio-chan.”

Kageyama looks up. “Me?”

“He just told us he doesn’t drink, you idiot!”

Oikawa-san glances over and catches Kageyama’s surprise. “I gotta thank my number one fan somehow,” he says. His eyes flicker down to where Tsukishima’s scarf is still wrapped around Kageyama’s neck. Under the table, their knees brush. Kageyama tenses, his breath speeding up. “Just pretend you do drink, Tobio-chan! I did go through all the effort to buy it for you after all!” He flashes a peace sign.

“You made no effort at all,” Iwaizumi-san growls. “You didn’t even bother asking if he wanted it. And what do you mean, number one fan?”

“Tobio-chan’s been to two of my games now! That’s more than everyone else in the room.”

So he did see Kageyama the last time. Kageyama thinks of the slow smile that had bled across Oikawa-san’s face. “You were amazing.”

“You think so?” Oikawa-san’s voice is still light, but the press of his leg against Kageyama’s is heavy. “Mou, it’s just because our ace is a lot better than Iwa-chan over here.”

“It’s not - ” Kageyama starts to say, but the waiter is back with their drinks, and Oikawa-san is cracking open two beers, one for each of them, and he’s laughing as Daichi-san tries to restrain Iwaizumi-san from grabbing at him. Oikawa-san looks happy, buoyant after a win, more relaxed in Kageyama’s presence than he has ever been. Their legs are still touching. Oikawa-san doesn’t move away, so Kageyama doesn’t either.

Over the next hour, Oikawa-san finishes all three of his beers and orders a fourth as they’re finishing up the fried squid. He doesn’t speak to Kageyama much, just once, when he asks who the “cute blonde girl” who’d been sitting next to Kageyama was. He doesn’t mention the game tonight, either. Instead, he talks about things called dimensions in space, slurring his words a little bit, his cheeks flushed with the alcohol. Apparently, there are up to eleven dimensions in the universe. Kageyama hadn’t even known there were more than three.

“Oikawa is doing a PhD in astrophysics,” Iwaizumi-san says. He must have seen how bewildered Kageyama was. “He studies radio galaxies but is also very into parallel universe theory.”

“Okay,” Kageyama says, remembering how Oikawa-san would sometimes talk about aliens during practice at Kitaichi. Parallel universes must have something to do with them.

“It means that there is a very large - possibly infinite - number of universes that exist, Tobio-chan,” Oikawa-san says, taking another sip of beer and scrapping the miso off the eggplant that just arrived. “So everything that didn’t happen in our past, but could have, has occurred in the past of some other universe. Who knows, maybe, in some other universe, I don’t hate you.”

Kageyama’s breath hitches. A cold wave crashes down his spine. The fact that Oikawa-san hates him isn’t surprising, but it still hurts to hear it.

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi-san hisses, “don’t be a dick.”

“I can’t help it,” Oikawa-san says guilelessly. “It’s my default mode.”

“Maybe in some parallel universe it won’t be.”

“The same universe I talked about, probably.”

When they leave, the bottle of beer Oikawa-san got Kageyama is still half-full. The owner comes out and sees them off, and Daichi-san and Iwaizumi-san part ways with Kageyama and Oikawa-san when they reach the main street; they are walking home.

“Are they roommates?” Kageyama asks Oikawa-san as they start walking. A stifling silence has fallen over them, and he wants to fill it. He’d been so preoccupied he forgot to ask Daichi-san how he and Iwaizumi-san met, or what he’d been doing for the past three years.

Roommates?” Oikawa-san echoes. “In a way, I guess. They’re together.”

“Yeah,” Kageyama says. Oikawa-san is really stating the obvious. “I know. They just left.”

“No, Tobio-chan,” Oikawa-san says, rolling his eyes. “As in. They’re dating and living together. They were holding hands under the table. Didn’t you notice?”

“No?” Kageyama was more focussed on something else under the table.

“God, you’re hopeless,” Oikawa-san says, his teeth chattering. Like Kageyama, he’s only wearing his team jacket. Kageyama thinks about offering Tsukishima’s scarf to him, but Tsukishima would probably kill Kageyama if he lent it to somebody else, and anyway, there’s only a very small chance Oikawa-san would accept it.

So he lengthens his strides, picking up the pace so they won’t prolong their time in the cold, rushing past neon signs and quickly emptying fast food shops. When they get to the station, he bounds down the steps two by two to get out of the wind. The platform is deserted, and he catches the tail lights of a train leaving, the rumble of its wheels echoing off the walls of the tunnel.

“Are you that eager to get away from me?” Oikawa-san is standing at the bottom of the stairs. His hair is a mess, and he’s slightly out of breath. He’s beautiful under the flickering fluorescent lights. Kageyama could stand there for ever and categorize him into the millions of things he remembers and the millions of things he doesn’t: the way he pouted whenever someone didn’t do what he wanted, how he has to tilt his head slightly upward to talk to Kageyama now.

God, you’re hopeless. Kageyama wants to say Oikawa-san’s words out loud, even though he wouldn’t know who the words would be for. Would they be for Oikawa-san, for thinking Kageyama was eager to get away from him, for forgetting that Kageyama has spent years chasing after him. Or would the words be for Kageyama himself, for spending so many years chasing, trying to pull ahead, and yet for some reason now all he wants is to pull Oikawa-san in and kiss him until he’s warm from it?

The want comes rushing out from somewhere inside him, like a dam breaking.

“Do you really hate me in this universe?” he says, and then grimaces. The question sounds the same as all the questions Kageyama’s asked of Oikawa-san before, containing the same amount of stupid, gushing hope despite everything.

“Hmmmm.” Oikawa-san hums. And he’s suddenly so close. Kageyama thinks he can count each one of Oikawa-san’s eyelashes as he blinks. “How about you observe and figure it out yourself? You’ve always been good at that.”

Neither of them move. But then, in a flash, Kageyama is overcome with the desire to somehow beat Oikawa-san. So he turns his head, leaning in, and presses his lips to Oikawa-san’s cheek.

And he waits, tense, his heart pounding in his chest, for Oikawa-san’s next move. He can feel Oikawa-san’s jaw working, hear his harsh intake of breath.

Then Oikawa-san turns to kiss Kageyama back.

It’s everything and nothing like Kageyama expected. Oikawa-san kisses him rough and sure, with tongue and lips and teeth, hot and unyielding. Kageyama is so aware of the drag of Oikawa-san’s hand down his back, the tight grip of Oikawa-san’s fingers on his bicep, the hard lines of Oikawa-san’s body against his. And Kageyama has kissed before, has been kissed, but it was never like this. He feels dizzy and unprepared, gasping for air every time Oikawa-san moves away to let him breathe, trying hard to meet Oikawa-san halfway when he leans back in.

Something whistles in the background, and a train rushes into the station. Oikawa-san breaks away from Kageyama, and they stare at each other. Then Oikawa-san’s gaze slides away, and his mouth splits into a grin. The tightness of it contrasts weirdly with his swollen lips. He says, “That was fun, Tobio-chan,” in that light, sing-song voice of his, as though the kissing that happened moments ago was just a rally Oikawa-san had beaten Kageyama at. He moves toward the incoming train, turns away from Kageyama and waits for it to slow to a stop. Kageyama wants to reach out and stop him from getting on the train, to tell him there’s no way Kageyama would figure this out, but Kageyama’s too overwhelmed.

The train is already moving away when Kageyama fully registers what’s going on. It’s the same thing. Kageyama had had Oikawa-san within reach, felt the number thirteen on Oikawa-san’s volleyball jacket rasping underneath his palm and the exhilaration of getting closer and closer to him. Kageyama had thought he’d win. But then Oikawa-san did the unthinkable. He did everything Kageyama could have done and more and slipped out of Kageyama’s hold. And now the doors have slid shut and Oikawa-san is gone and Kageyama is left behind again.

Kageyama turns around to catch his own train. He raises a hand to wipe the spit away from his chin. Kageyama is left behind again. All he can focus on is the bitter taste of Oikawa-san’s beer lingering in his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, here we go again with this angst-ridden ship. Hah.
> 
> This was done in part for the [Oikage Big Bang 2018 ](https://oikagebigbang.tumblr.com/). I had an awesome time writing it. Awesome meaning I cried at my friends and pulled at my hair in frustration a lot because Oikawa and Kageyama are just really dumb with feelings. But we like idiots who are dumb with feelings in this family, so. Enjoy! Updates will be once a week on Fridays, and check out the wonderful, wonderful [art ](http://uushibaka.tumblr.com/post/181685785112/my-okbb-piece-for-deadseasalts-amazing-fic)[ uushibaka ](https://uushibaka.tumblr.com/) made for this. 
> 
> Lots of love for [Tea_EarlGrey_Hot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tea_EarlGrey_Hot) for beta-ing and being aforementioned friend <3
> 
> If you'd like, you can follow me on [ tumblr ](https://deadseasalt.tumblr.com/).


	2. the same old songs with the same old rhymes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your encouragement on the first chapter! Please enjoy this one and check out uushibaka's [art ](http://uushibaka.tumblr.com/post/181685785112/my-okbb-piece-for-deadseasalts-amazing-fic) if you haven't done so already!

For the next two weeks, Kageyama can’t stop thinking about kissing Oikawa-san.

The thing is, despite how he’d felt afterward, it was really good. The way that Oikawa-san had allowed Kageyama to touch him: the smooth sharpness of his shoulder blades, the tender skin at the nape of his neck, the slight jut of his hips. Kageyama has unconsciously memorized all of it. In that brief moment, beating Oikawa-san had nothing to do with it. It was just Kageyama and the impossible ache of the longing he didn’t know he’d carried, the want he’d unknowingly buried in his bones.

None of that mattered now. It’s been weeks since Kageyama’s been to a Meiji match, even though he goes on to the Intercollegiate Volleyball Association website to check rankings from time to time, and he can’t imagine going again anytime soon. The bright blue skies of October have blurred past November and faded into the dullness of December, heavy and lead-grey. It hasn’t started snowing yet, but Tokyo seems to be bracing for it. The streets are empty when Kageyama goes to practice, and they’re empty when he leaves.

The F.C. Tokyo team plays the Suntory Sunbirds in an early season friendly in the week leading up to Christmas. Kageyama finds himself trying out Oikawa-san’s new serve technique in the second set, when his team has a 1:0 lead buffer. He sends the ball into the net his first try, and it barely makes it over in his second, but when he jumps up in preparation for his third, he knows. The twist in his torso is just right, where the ball reaches its zenith is not a millimetre off his prediction, and when his palm makes contact with the ball, it’s perfect. His serve slams into that sweet spot between Miya Atsumu and the Sunbirds’ number four. The gym is silent in its wake. The adrenaline in Kageyama’s veins sings.

Kageyama tries it again a second and third time and aces them both. His fourth serve isn’t so lucky. The Sunbirds’ libero makes a dive for it and gets the ball haphazardly in play, and Miya Atsumu is a good setter. He sprints for the ball and makes a backward toss for the ace, who gets the Sunbirds a point with a minus-tempo quick.

“Nicked someone’s serve, did you?” Ueda asks him as they wait for the Sunbirds’ serve.

“Observed and learned,” Kageyama grunts.

“Copied, more like. I bet he’ll like that.”

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Kageyama moves backward to receive the ball.

They win against the Sunbirds for the first time since Kageyama joined the team. Afterward, Miya Atsumu corners him as they refill their water bottles by the fountain.

“That serve is new.”

“I guess so.” Kageyama doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. The water pressure in the fountain is really low today, and the water only comes out in a small trickle.

“So is that backward toss you sent to ‘Samu.” Atsumu shifts closer.

Kageyama moves away. “That isn’t new. Ushijima-san’s been wanting me to perfect it all last season.”

“But now you’ve done it,” Atsumu says, his voice hushed. Kageyama doesn’t know why he’s being so quiet. It isn’t as though they’re trading setter secrets or something. “How did you figure it out? You were still struggling in September.”

“Can’t I just have a breakthrough?”

“Something has to trigger it, though.” Atsumu says. He looks so eager. Kageyama still remembers the Atsumu who’d played it cool the first time they met at training camp. “Please. I want to get better, too.”

Kageyama hesitates. It’s going to be hard to explain the tendency he has of imitating Oikawa-san. “I went to a Meiji game-”

“Their new setter is amazing!”

“Yes, and-”

“Wait!” Atsumu’s eyes go huge. “Is that who you learned your technique from? He taught you?”

“Not exactly,” Kageyama says slowly. He’d rather not be talking about this right now. “He -”

“Oikawa, right?” Atsumu interrupts. “Hit us up sometime. You can’t have him all to yourself.”

The bottom of Kageyama’s stomach drops away. He doesn’t have Oikawa-san to himself. A part of his mind goes unwittingly back to their kiss: the pull of Oikawa-san’s lips, the scrape of his teeth, Oikawa-san’s grin afterwards, how unaffected he had been. He opens his mouth to correct Atsumu, but in that moment, Komatsu runs by and slaps him across the back. “We’re back on.”

“What?” Kageyama calls at him.

“We’re playing another set, just for fun.”

Atsumu looks up at the empty stands. “For an absent audience.” He makes a mournful face.

Maybe Kageyama should introduce Atsumu to Oikawa-san. They were birds of a feather after all.

~

Kageyama is making curry when the phone rings, the SPYAIR song he never bothered to change after Hinata had set it as his ringtone in second year shrills insistently.

“I was thinking of skipping Tuesday coffee next week,” Yachi says as soon as Kageyama picks up the phone.

Kageyama drops the spoon he was stirring his curry with. So it’s really happening. Yachi and Tsukishima will be going on dates from now on, and Kageyama will spend his Tuesdays going to the Tokyo Gas Gym for extra practice on his own because he won’t know what else to do. He pauses, shocked at the thought. Since when has he preferred lunch over practice?

“Okay,” he says.

And he must have sounded panicked over the phone because there’s an sharp intake of breath on Yachi’s end. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that! What I meant was, it’s your birthday next week, isn’t it? I was thinking, instead of coffee on Tuesday, we can have a party instead.”

“Oh.” Kageyama clutches the phone closer, surprised. “I forgot.”

Yachi laughs. “You forgot that it’s your birthday soon? Do you really not think about anything besides volleyball, Kageyama-kun?”

“Not usually.” Kageyama can count on four fingers the things he thinks about besides volleyball. Two of those things are out of necessity, and the other two he never used to give too much thought about. They’re increasingly taking up space in the front of his mind now, though he’s too embarrassed to tell Yachi that.

“Tsukki’s agreed to rent out his apartment for the party,” Yachi says, as Kageyama bends to clean up the curry on the floor. “He says you’ll have to supply him good alcohol the day of to return the favour. Don’t worry, though, Daichi-san said he’ll cover it.”

“Daichi-san is coming?”

“Yes, I invited him and Iwaizumi-san. I know I said the party’s going to be for your birthday, but they’re both in town for Christmas, and I thought it’ll be nice for us to get together for the holidays, too. Us Karasuno kids.” Yachi sounds hopeful but hesitant, like Kageyama was going to say anything other than yes.

“Hey,” he says, going back to the kitchen and starting up his curry again. “Do you remember that Christmas when Ukai-san took us out for karaoke during winter training camp and sang that duet with Takeda-sensei? They were terrible at it.”

“Of course!” Yachi giggles. “But you shouldn’t throw stones when you live in a glass house, Kageyama.”

“What do you mean?”

“You and Hinata were trying to out-sing each other. You completely butchered my favourite Utada Hikaru song!”

Kageyama blinks. He doesn’t remember that part. “I’m sorry.” The curry in the pot hisses, and he quickly stirs it to keep it from burning.

“It’s fine,” Yachi says. She sounds exasperated. “It’s not like it’s entirely your fault. You only take half the blame.”

“Hinata definitely butchered it more than me.”

“You were equally as bad,” Yachi corrects. “Just pick another song next time.”

“We’ll pick Tsukishima’s favourite,” Kageyama says immediately.

“That’s a great plan,” Yachi agrees. “There’s nothing that annoys Tsukki more than bad renditions of good songs.”

“It’s decided, then,” Kageyama says. He feels a smile start to form. This is the happiest he’s been since October. “I’ll see you on Tuesday.”

“Wait!” Yachi shouts, startling him. “I meant to – I mean. Iwaizumi-san asked me if Oikawa-san could come and I said I’d asked you first. And Iwaizumi-san said it was totally fine if you didn’t want Oikawa-san there, because of what he said last time. So,” she trails off, unsure.

Kageyama tenses. There’s a long silence. Yachi’s unasked question hangs in the air. The curry froths as it starts to boil over. Kageyama takes it off the heat and pours it into a bowl even though he doesn’t feel like eating anymore. His hands shake.

“Kageyama?”

In volleyball, Kageyama can make decisions - who to toss to, where the ball should go, how fast the spike should be - in a fraction of a second, and he’ll be confident in his conducting of the game. Even when Oikawa-san was the opponent on the other side of the net, Kageyama would still feel some semblance of surety in his fingertips. But he and Oikawa-san aren’t playing each other anymore, and now that they’ve kissed, Kageyama feels even more unmoored and uncertain. He wishes that he could be like Oikawa-san that night, confident and unaffected, that he didn’t care whether or not Oikawa-san liked him in every universe other than this one, but he does. And that erodes at him along with the want that’s been so intense ever since.

He’s aware of Yachi waiting on the other end of the line, but he can’t get his voice to work. Yachi seems to get it, though, because she says, “We don’t have to invite him, you know?”

Kageyama’s heart kicks. His words come out forceful, pushing through his teeth. “I want him to come.”

“Okay,” Yachi says quietly. “I’ll tell Iwaizumi-san.” She pauses. “You should invite your other friends, too. Your teammates.”

After Yachi hangs up, Kageyama stares at his curry. He was going to add a soft-boiled egg to it, but it seems pointless now. All he wants to do is to curl up in bed and sleep. He covers the bowl with a plate and puts it in the fridge, and, for the first time since he’s come to Tokyo, leaves his dirty pan in the sink instead of cleaning it straight away.

~

Kageyama had thought Tsukishima would be the type of person to have a very neat apartment. Books would be colour-coded and arranged in alphabetical order on one shelf. Walls would be spotless and mold-free. Everything and everywhere would be brightly lit and utilitarian.

In reality, Tsukishima’s apartment is neither utilitarian nor neat. Paint peels off the walls in large, white, irregular sheets. An assortment of posters cling desperately to it with one corner. The kitchen is small and crammed to the brim with Tsukishima’s roommate’s late night gaming snacks, and the living room is littered with Tsukishima’s music records and law textbooks. It’s not what Kageyama expected, but it feels nice, lived in, friendlier than Kageyama’s own.

Atsumu picks up the record lying on top of the kotatsu. “Five Seconds of Summer,” he says, sounding out the kana on the cover. He looks up, frowning. “Hey, isn’t this a boy band – ”

Tsukishima snatches the record out of Atsumu’s hand. The tips of his ears are red. “My roommate will kill you if he sees you touching his things.”

Atsumu holds up his hands. “I like boy bands, too,” he says placatingly. “Like RADWIMPS –”

“RADWIMPS is a rock band, Tsumu,” says Osamu, inspecting one of the faded Jurassic Park posters hanging off the living room wall.

“Okay.” Atsumu tilts his head to one side. “Sekai no Owari, then.”

“Also a rock band. And Saori is a woman.”

“Samu, come on!” Atsumu sighs. “I’m just trying to make Glasses here feel at home.”

“This is my home,” Tsukishima hisses. He turns to Kageyama. “You couldn’t have brought any other teammate?”

“You’d rather I had brought Ushijima-san?” There was little chance that Ushijima-san would have agreed to come, had Kageyama asked, but Kageyama still brings up his name to irk Tsukishima.

“No.” Tsukishima exhales heavily. “Never mind.” He picks up Atsumu’s empty beer can, glares at it, and sets it back down again.

Atsumu looks at him, faintly amused. Then he turns to Kageyama. “By the way, Tobio-kun, is there something on the front door that you’re seeing and I’m not?”

“What?”

“You keep glancing at it.” Atsumu shrugs. “It’s just a door. It doesn’t merit multiple glances.”

“Oh.” Kageyama glances at the door again just to check. He doesn’t know why he’s checking – he isn’t expecting anyone. Atsumu still has that amused smile on his face. “It’s just a door,” Kageyama mutters.

“If you say so.” Atsumu wanders off.

There isn’t much for Kageyama to do at parties, though, even if they’re organized in his honour. They’re indoors, so they can’t play volleyball, Kageyama doesn’t really drink, and it’s not like he can join Daichi-san and Iwaizumi-san who are sipping mulled wine on the couch, deep in conversation. He makes his way into the kitchen to see if Yachi is there, but instead of finding one blond head, there are two. Kageyama turns away. He feels like he’s intruding on something he used to be a part of not too long ago, and an undercurrent of loss forms inside him, building and building.

The doorbell rings, but everyone seems to be preoccupied with something, so Kageyama brings the undercurrent with him to the door.

Oikawa-san is standing on the other side, dressed in casual clothes, his hair a mess. There’s a bit of white bruising the shoulders of his navy peacoat, and he’s wearing glasses. They’re all fogged up, so Kageyama can’t see his eyes.

“Are you going to invite me in, Tobio-chan?” Oikawa-san snaps. “It’s freezing out here.”

And then anger crashes in on Kageyama like a tsunami. “Iwaizumi-san said you weren’t coming.”

“Well, I’m here now. I texted Glasses to let him know. He said it was okay.”

“It’s not.” Oikawa-san can’t just. Show up unexpected. Can’t just let Kageyama kiss him, let Kageyama catch up to him, leave him in the dust along the train tracks, and then slow down and come back again. Kageyama hasn’t had the time to lick his wounds, make sure he can beat Oikawa-san this time.

The fog on Oikawa-san’s glasses clears up. He’s staring at Kageyama. “Who died and made you master of the house?”

Kageyama’s heart is racing, there are butterflies churning in his stomach. He grits his teeth. If Oikawa-san decides to show up regardless, Kageyama will beat him regardless.

“It’s my party.”

Oikawa-san takes off his scarf, exposing a long strip of neck. “Where’s Iwa-chan?”

“Inside.”

“How helpful.”

Oikawa-san reaches out a hand, and for one heart-stopping moment, Kageyama thinks Oikawa-san is going to cup his cheek. But Oikawa-san just pushes at Kageyama’s shoulder to make space for himself inside the apartment.

“Oikawa.” Iwaizumi-san has left Daichi-san on the couch and is making his way over to them. “I thought you said you weren’t coming?”

Oikawa-san pouts. “Why is everyone asking me the same thing.”

“Because that’s what you told everyone,” Iwaizumi-san says, frowning. He takes Oikawa-san’s jacket from him, shaking off the remaining bits of snow. “Does Tsukishima know you’re coming? You do have a tendency to show up uninvited, you know?”

“But I was invited, I just turned it down for a bit,” Oikawa-san says lightly, bending down to take off his shoes. His socks, Kageyama notices, are dark blue with shooting stars patterned all over. “Don’t look so grumpy, Iwa-chan. It’s almost like you don’t want me here.”

Iwaizumi-san rubs a hand over his face and sighs. “You might as well move out of the way, then. You’re blocking poor Kageyama in the doorway.”

“Tobio-chan has been blocking me ever since I arrived.” Oikawa-san stands up, letting his hands fall against Kageyama’s, lingering. “And since when have I ever been in his way?”

Since forever, Kageyama wants to say. He also wants to hold Oikawa-san’s hand. Those are two things he will not allow himself.

So he shifts away. He can see Oikawa-san looking at him out of the corner of his eye. It’s just for a moment, but it feels like Oikawa-san was gauging him, trying to predict his next move. Only, Kageyama doesn’t have a next move. He’s completely out of his depth. The play he wants to make will be blocked effectively and mercilessly, the gigantic dam of Oikawa-san’s pride and hatred for Kageyama looms so impossibly tall.

Kageayama doesn’t think of their kiss at all. “Didn’t you say you were cold, Oikawa-san? You should go in and have some of that mulled wine Daichi-san brought. Atsumu says it’s the best wine he’s ever tasted.”

Oikawa-san sniffs. His nose is wet. Kageyama almost offers him a tissue. “Don’t tell me what to do. And who is this Atsumu person?” He pauses. Then his eyes go wide. “It’s not Miya Atsumu, is it?”

Kageyama’s heart thumps loudly in his ears. “Yes.”

“Well,” Oikawa-san says, his eyes glinting. “I’m glad I came.”

~

Kageyama ends up sandwiched between Daichi-san and Iwaizumi-san for most of the party. They hand him a mug of hot chocolate after dinner and quiz him about playing the Netherlands, a game they had watched on TV. A game Kageyama had lost.

It had been the semi-finals, and Japan was winning by two sets when the Netherlands suddenly switched setters. And the new setter was so in control and so quick to pick up Kageyama’s moves, Kageyama was thrown. The Netherlands won back a set, then two, then Coach took Kageyama off the court and sent Miya in his place. Kageyama hadn’t known defeat like this since Kitaichi.

“That pinch-setter guy,” Daichi-san is saying. “He’s really good, isn’t he? I wonder why the coach didn’t put him in sooner.”

Kageyama grits his teeth. “He was incredible. He saw right through me.”

“He kind of reminds me of Oikawa, really,” Iwaizumi-san says, giving an imaginary ball a toss. “Scary.”

“He—” Kageyama grapples with what Iwaizumi-san just said. “What do you mean?”

“I mean.” Iwaizumi-san’s eyebrows furrow. “He’s not like Oikawa in his actual physical plays. Like, I won’t be able to spike his tosses with my eyes closed like I could Oikawa’s. But he didn’t just see through you. He saw through everyone. His game sense is incredible, and everyone else in his team just follows him.” Iwaizumi-san picks up his own mug from the stack of textbooks in front of him. “In that sense, I’d say he’s just like Oikawa.”

“I see.” Kageyama takes a sip of his drink to quell the butterflies that have made it to the bottom of his throat. The hot chocolate burns at the roof of his mouth.

“That makes it even harder to explain why the coach didn’t put him in from the get-go,” Daichi-san protests. He leans over to take Iwaizumi-san’s mug from him. “We never saw him until this game.”

“He was in the first few games. You just didn’t watch him because you weren’t interested in games that don’t involve Japan. He’s actually official setter. He just disappeared until the semi-finals because he’d injured himself. And now he’s back, nineteen years old, a goddamn wunderkind.” Iwaizumi-san sighs.

“Sounds like someone else we know,” Daichi-san says, patting Kageyama’s knee. His voice is teasing, though his touch is comforting.

“I’m twenty one, not nineteen,” Kageyama says. “Twenty two,” he corrects himself as Yachi brings out the cake.

It’s the same one as last year’s, only bigger. Last year, there was only Kageyama, Tsukishima, and Yachi huddled around the candles. Kageyama had just gotten off the plane from a training camp in Beijing, and Tsukishima had just written an exam that morning, and they had both been half-asleep from fatigue and all-nighters, so it had been a quiet celebration. This year, Kageyama watches the candlelight flutter across Oikawa-san’s cheeks like butterflies, his heart anything but quiet. He presses a palm against it and makes a wish. When he leans forward to blow out the candles, Oikawa-san’s face is turned away, in profile, sharp and beautiful. And the air whooshes out of Kageyama’s lungs, cocooning the room in darkness.

Later, as he’s passing out slices of cake to his guests, he finds Oikawa-san and Miya Atsumu deep in conversation. Miya Atsumu is staring at Oikawa-san, his eyes wide. He looks like Kageyama in middle school, young and starstruck.

“How does it feel to have Tobio-chan replace you as official setter, Miya-kun?” Oikawa-san asks as Kageyama sets down a piece of cake in front of him. “You played for Japan during the last Olympics. Outstandingly, if I must say. And now you’re just back-up. Aren’t you resentful at all?”

Kageyama falters. Oikawa-san picks up his fork and takes a slow bite of cake.

“Replacing someone does seem to be a play-style of Tobio-kun’s.” Atsumu sighs, throwing himself against the back of his chair. “I heard his high school senpai got the same treatment. I don’t know. A little envious, I guess. He gets to play all the games I want to play. But he’s good, a lot better than in high school. So, I’m glad he’s playing for Japan.”

“So, you’re saying that you don’t care if he bulldozes over you?”

Atsumu laughs, a little startled. “Well, of course I do care. But it’s not like I can do anything about it. I’ll just have to work harder, now that he has surpassed me, and try to surpass him.”

“And what if,” Oikawa-san says, “what if you can’t surpass him even if you know you’ve worked your hardest?”

Atsumu accepts the plate Kageyama hands him. If he sees Kageyama’s grip tremble, he makes no comment. Atsumu’s expression is completely shuttered, his face blanker than Kageyama has ever seen. He is silent for long moments, then he says, slowly, “I think, if I have done my best, then that’s good enough.” He smiles, and glances at Kageyama. Kageyama feels like he’s made of lead, toxic and heavy, unable to move. “Not everyone can be a Kageyama Tobio, and nobody should. Just because Kageyama has surpassed me doesn’t mean he has taken my volleyball away from me. I can still work hard on my own plays and improve from there. I think I’m happier because I’ve accepted that.”

“I see.” Oikawa-san takes another bite of the cake. He reaches out his free hand and lays it on Atsumu’s forearm. Atsumu looks both bewildered and bewitched. Kageyama wills himself to move.

Yachi is eating her own slice of cake next to the window overlooking the street below. Someone had strung up Christmas lights around it, framing Yachi in red, yellow, and blue. She looks up when Kageyama approaches.

“It’s snowing outside,” Yachi says.

Kageyama peers out the window. “The snow must be at least two feet deep in Miyagi now.”

Yachi smiles. “Three years ago today, you, me, and Shouyou were out playing in the snow with Natsu. We had a competition to see who would build the biggest, strongest, snowperson.”

“Hinata’s was definitely the weakest.”

“Not that yours was that much better.”

“It was better than his.”

“Mine was the best, though. You can’t argue that my snow Hanae Mori was the strongest of them all.”

“Snowwomen are generally stronger than snowmen.”

Yachi appraises him. “So you do learn things outside of volleyball.”

Kageyama grimaces. “I’m not a complete idiot, despite what Tsukishima says.”

“Tsukki doesn’t know a thing about women,” Yachi says, laughing. “I think he tends to ignore our existence, mostly.”

“Tsukishima tends to ignore everyone but himself.”

“That’s not true,” Yachi says softly. “You know it’s not.”

Kageyama thinks about the scarf Tsukishima lent him and told him to keep in October. “Yeah.”

Across the room, Oikawa-san still has a hand on Atsumu's arm. They’re laughing. Tonight, Oikawa-san had asked Atsumu whether he had been resentful about Kageyama surpassing him, and Atsumu had said no. But Kageyama knows that the question hadn’t really been about Atsumu at all.

Oikawa-san had thought Kageyama had surpassed him, and that is something incomprehensible to Kageyama. It has always been like this: every time he saw Oikawa-san, whether it was now or middle school or all the years in between, Oikawa-san has always changed, has always somehow gotten better and new. Kageyama has tried to match him, through his serves, his tosses, his plays, but Oikawa-san always seemed so far away. The only time Kageyama truly felt they had come together as equals was in October, when they met in the middle in that cold Metro station. It had sent most of him reeling, but a part of him had leapt up and said, finally. Finally. Like Kageyama had known and was waiting for it to happen. Like it was a strategy he'd anticipated Oikawa-san would use.

And now, even though Oikawa-san has reverted back to old nicknames and casual brushes-off, it feels like he's led Kageyama into entirely new territory. It feels like the first time Kageyama had fallen for Oikawa-san's fake and lost to his setter dump. The first time Kageyama remembered Oikawa-san was still so far ahead. Kageyama tries to bring back up the anger he’d felt earlier on this evening, the drive to win, but the tsunami is gone, leaving nothing but the scattered debris of confusion in its wake.

“I’m leaving.”

It’s hard to look at Oikawa-san and Atsumu, who are sitting across from one another, who do not feel the need to surpass each other. It’s hard to not imagine what would happen between them when he leaves, but it’s too much to bear if he stays. Would Oikawa-san's hand keep resting on Atsumu’s arm all night? Would he stay relaxed like this, almost lazy, almost dreamlike? How much would Atsumu get to touch?

“But you just had cake,” Yachi says, blinking up at him.

Kageyama swallows. “I have practice tomorrow,” he says. But, remembering his wish, he continues, “Do you want to walk to the Metro together? We could build a new snowwoman, a Rinko Kawauchi, if you’d like.”

Yachi blushes and averts her gaze. “Sorry. I told Tsukki I’d stay behind and help him tidy the place up.”

“Oh,” Kageyama says, the word dry in his mouth. “Of course.”

He walks back to the station alone. Tsukishima lives in a suburb near the Tokyo University, by Ueno, so Kageyama has to pass through fifteen stops to get home. It will be a long ride, especially since Yachi would have been with him for ten of those stops had she left as well. The snow is soaking through his shoes, leaving his toes numb. His nose hurts from the cold, and he pulls Tsukishima’s scarf up to cover it. His hands are the only parts of his body that are warm; the gloves Yachi got him last Christmas protecting them from the chill.

The station is unsurprisingly empty. Kageyama makes his way to the middle where the subway map stands, to check his route one more time. As he straightens up, he becomes acutely aware of someone standing behind him, and he moves to give the other map-reader some room.

“Tobio-chan.”

The nickname is a rogue wave knocking the wind out of him. Oikawa-san is there, in his navy peacoat with snow dusting his shoulders, his cheeks pink from the cold. He had been, for some inexplicable reason, running, his breath coming fast and staccato in gasps. Kageyama can only stare at him; he doesn’t trust himself to speak. He doesn’t think he can, anyway.

“You didn’t give me a chance to wish you a happy birthday,” Oikawa-san says. He’d stuffed his hands in his pockets, but he takes one of them out now, and thrusts something at Kageyama.

“A gift card,” Kageyama says, dumbly. It’s red, with the romanized characters “VICTORIA” gleaming white across it.

“Figured you would need new kneepads sometime.” Oikawa-san is looking resolutely at an ad that’s trying to sell him an Ikea dining table.

There are so many things Kageyama wants to ask Oikawa-san, so many he can’t even count. Things like why? Or what were you thinking when you asked Atsumu if he resented me? Or have you felt this way since middle school? Or even the same question as last time. The question Oikawa-san never really answered.

The aching longing is back. The situation is ridiculously like the one in October. They’re in the Metro station, waiting for the train to come. And there are so many things Kageyama wants to ask Oikawa-san, and so many things he wants from him. Before, Kageyama had wanted his serve and his recognition. Last time, Kageyama had wanted to beat him. Now, he just wants to kiss Oikawa-san, make it the best kiss Oikawa-san’s ever had, make Oikawa-san want to chase after him and kiss him back.

He reaches out to take the card, and, on an impulse, snags Oikawa-san’s hand instead. He expected Oikawa-san to be surprised, but Oikawa-san just looks evenly back at him. Challenging, even.

He wants Kageyama to ask, Kageyama realizes. And the anger returns like the tide. What the fuck? Why would Oikawa-san want Kageyama to ask when he has always denied Kageyama, sometimes with a pout, sometimes with an annoyed look, once with an almost blow to Kageyama’s face? But then Oikawa-san’s hand closes around Kageyama’s, and he reaches over and adjusts Kageyama’s scarf so the wool wouldn’t cover his mouth. Kageyama inhales, and the air burns his lungs. He feels like one of those stupid butterflies in his stomach from earlier on, coming out of his cocoon, taking his first breath, Oikawa-san’s touch unfurling his wings.

“Did you,” he begins, stops, and starts again. “Did you want to come back to my place? For birthday beers, or something?”

Oikawa-san looks like he’s torn between a laugh and a sigh. “You don’t even drink,” he says. “I noticed. From last time. It’s bad manners to not finish the drinks your senpai buys for you, you know?”

Still, with the red gift card in his hand, Kageyama is feeling a little brave tonight, and hadn’t he always been one to ask, without a care for the consequences?

“You just made that etiquette up.”

“I didn’t. You would know if you went to university.” Oikawa-san is so close. His breath skids across Kageyama’s cheeks, warming them. There are marks on the bridge of nose from the press of glasses Kageyama has never seen him wear, and freckles scattering along his cheekbones. The bow of his lips is slightly uneven. Kageyama had never noticed back in high school or middle school or even in October, when everything happened way too quickly, but he thinks he will pay attention to now.

“Do you want to come back with me or not?” Kageyama’s turned on, but that doesn’t mean he’s not annoyed.

Oikawa-san ignores him. He just walks on ahead ont he last train to back to Nakano.

~

They crash into each other like waves. As soon as they are in Kageyama’s apartment, Oikawa-san is all over him, hurriedly taking off his jacket and slipping his hands underneath his shirt, his fingertips cold against Kageyama’s abdomen. His kisses are wet and sloppy, deep and hungry and much too fast. Kageyama curls his hands into Oikawa-san’s coat, the melting snow stings at his palms.

It’s like last time, with Oikawa-san setting the pace of their kissing, and Kageyama so intent on keeping up, he’s barely able to register what’s going on. His shirt is gone and Oikawa-san is everywhere, everywhere – his hands, his mouth – and suddenly it’s too much. Kageyama pulls away when Oikawa-san hooks his thumbs in the waistband of his tracksuit pants. Oikawa-san’s hair is a mess, his lips red and spit-slick, his pupils blown wide with desire. He’s still fully dressed, Kageyama realizes, which is totally unfair when Kageyama is already half-naked in the gloom of his genkan.

Carefully, Kageyama reaches over to undo the buttons of Oikawa-san’s coat. His fingers shake and he wants to be close, but he also wants to be in control. He’s on his third button when Oikawa-san whines and says, “Tobio-chan,” in a voice that makes heat pool in his stomach like lava. But he ignores it, just as he ignores Oikawa-san pulling impatiently at his hair, Oikawa-san’s teeth nipping demandingly at his ear.

“Shhhh,” he hears himself say. He tugs Oikawa-san’s coat off, and breaks away from Oikawa-san’s embrace to hang it on the rack.

When he turns back, Oikawa-san kisses him again, his lips feverish, urgent. Kageyama tries to lean away, to slow things down, but Oikawa-san bites up the side of his neck, latching on when Kageyama lets out a moan and sucking so he leaves a mark. And it feels too good. This is something Kageyama’s only ever imagined in fleeting moments since October: Oikawa-san pressed up against him – not just carelessly kissing him in the cold, roaring silence of the Metro station – but actually touching him, hands eager, actually wanting him. Kageyama presses his fingers into the hollowness underneath Oikawa-san’s ribcage, moving up until he can feel the rapid beat of Oikawa-san’s heart against his chest.

Oikawa-san tugs at Kageyama’s waistband again, and this time, Kageyama lets him. His pants pool around his legs, and Oikawa-san lets him go so he can step out of them. Being apart gives him a moment of clarity, and when he straightens up, he’s resolved to actually take Oikawa-san to his bedroom before anything else happens.

It takes effort, because as Kageyama is taking Oikawa-san’s hand to lead him further into the apartment, Oikawa-san pushes himself back into Kageyama’s arms again. His hips shift restlessly, grinding. And it’s hard for Kageyama to focus on the task at hand when all the blood is leaving his brain for somewhere else. Kageyama manages to maneuver them there, but as soon as the door closes behind them, it’s Oikawa-san who is moving them both towards the bed.

“Scoot up,” Oikawa-san says, his voice low, and Kageyama does. His legs fall apart when Oikawa-san follows him, and he lets out a groan when Oikawa-san straddles his thigh, the tip of Oikawa-san’s knee brushing the slit of his briefs. Then Oikawa-san is reaching in and pulling him out, his grip light but firm, his thumb circling the tip experimentally.

Kageyama gasps out, falling back against his pillows, helpless. Oikawa-san strokes him fast and sure. He’s grinning, and Kageyama wants to lean up and kiss that stupid smile off his stupid face, but he’s too caught up in the slick slide of Oikawa-san’s hands around him.

“Not so much of a genius in this, huh, Tobio-chan?” Oikawa-san asks, wicked and teasing, dragging his fingertips along the vein on the underside of Kageyama’s cock.

“Oh,” Kageyama says. He tries to get up on his elbows, to get away from the sting of pleasure that’s growing even sharper as Oikawa-san squeezes him tighter, but Oikawa-san presses his free hand against Kageyama’s collarbone, leaning down with his weight, and holds him there.

“Watch me,” Oikawa-san says as he increases the speed. He’s too good at this, Kageyama thinks as his eyes fall shut. He’s thrusting into Oikawa-san’s hand shamelessly now, his senses clogged with the smell of Oikawa-san’s sweat mixed in with his hair gel. It makes him dizzy and breathless and defenseless, and he hears himself call out Oikawa-san’s name, too loud and desperate as he hurtles towards coming.

“Oikawa-san,” he chokes out, “wait—I’m—it’s too—”

But Oikawa-san doesn’t wait. He keeps up the pace, and Kageyama’s crying out and arching up, the pleasure inside him burning much too bright. He wants it to stop. Nothing is turning out the way he wants it to. Kageyama was supposed to be the one getting Oikawa-san off, to watch him come undone while Kageyama maintains some semblance of control. But it’s too late. Defeat blooms in his chest even as his orgasm blinds him towards everything else, and he’s gasping, heels digging into his bed as he comes back down.

Oikawa-san is watching him carefully at the foot of his bed, his expression guarded. He’s still hard, but he turns away when Kageyama reaches for him. Confused, Kageyama takes his hand back, and he watches, dumbstruck, as Oikawa-san brings himself off. The buzzing silence in the aftermath is too much to bear, like Kageyama is underwater and the only sound he can hear is his own drowning breath. He excuses himself to the washroom to clean himself off.

Kageyama’s face in the mirror is still flushed from his orgasm, and he splashes water on it to make it go away. A bruise is starting to form on his neck, but there’s no way he can get rid of that. He rubs at it, annoyed at himself, and he gets even more annoyed when he realizes he hadn’t left any mark on Oikawa-san, that he hadn’t done anything he wanted to do to him at all. Kageyama’s twenty two, but he feels so much younger and inexperienced than that. Oikawa-san had done everything himself. Watch, Oikawa-san had said, and Kageyama watches as the hickey unfolds like the wings of an angry crimson butterfly.

He goes back out to the bedroom after rubbing himself down twice, fully expecting Oikawa-san to have cleared out by now, but Oikawa-san is still there, lounging at the edge of Kageyama’s bed, staring at the moonlight that’s seeped through his blinds. Kageyama just stands there, at a loss of what to do. It would be too awkward to get back into bed, but it’s not like he can leave his own apartment.

“I should go,” Oikawa-san says, after a couple heartbeats.

“Okay,” Kageyama says, “I can call you a cab.”

“No need,” Oikawa-san says sharply. Then he hovers, as if hesitant, and walks over, the sound of his footsteps quiet on the hardwood floor. He tilts his head up and brushes his lips against Kageyama’s. It’s strangely tender, almost apologetic but not quite. A gentle lapping of an ocean against the shore. Kageyama tingles all over, and it’s the kind of feeling he hasn’t felt tonight. He doesn’t understand anything Oikawa-san is doing, and it’s frustrating, but the kiss makes him bring his hand up to cup Oikawa-san’s cheek all the same, trace his thumbs down his jawbone.

“Okay?” Oikawa-san says, an unreadable expression on his face. Kageyama wonders if Oikawa-san is as adrift and unanchored as he is. But Oikawa-san’s motions are certain as he moves away.

“Okay,” Kageyama says. He hears his voice splintering, his breath ragged in his throat. And it still hasn’t stitched itself back together when Oikawa-san walks out of the house, closing the door soundlessly behind him.

The quietness Kageyama is left with is heavy. He takes out his phone to call Yachi and get away from it, but then remembers that it’s the middle of the night, and that Yachi is probably busy at Tsukishima’s. The only sound in the house is the clock ticking towards three in the morning, so Kageyama says out loud the thing he feels will best block out the silence.

“I had sex with Oikawa-san.” The words don’t make sense at all. They feel amorphous and surreal. They make the silence even heavier.

Kageyama sighs. He goes into the living room and turns on the radio. He picks up all the abandoned clothing from the floor and puts them in the washing machine. The red Victoria gift card has fallen out of his pockets, but Kageyama doesn’t bother with picking it back up. After he sets the machine to wash, he sits on the couch, and along with the whirr of clothes being cleaned and the soft vocals of the English dreampop song from the radio, Kageyama waits for morning training to come.


	3. all i know since yesterday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, ugh, sorry for saying that I'd upload on Friday then didn't. But here it is now. Thank you for your patience!! Enjoy!

On the first days of the new year, a cold spell hits Tokyo and sends temperatures tumbling down to the minuses. The pipes in Kageyama’s apartment freeze, and he spends one evening after practice trying to thaw them out, catching a cold while doing so. Coach sends him home early the next day, despite Kageyama’s protests, and forbids him from attending practice for the next two days.

Yachi comes over and brings him rice porridge. Apparently Hinata had laughed about Kageyama being sick over the phone to her. When Kageyama asks how Hinata had known even though Kageyama hadn’t told him anything, Yachi just smiles. “Shouyou is all-knowing.”

“Bullshit,” Kageyama says, and chokes on his cough. “Hinata is the biggest dumbass I know.”

Yachi slides her legs into Kageyama’s kotatsu and presses a cold foot into Kageyama’s knee. Kageyama hisses. Yachi laughs. “You just texted him at the wrong time,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“You texted him when you normally have practice.”

Kageyama frowns, and coughs again. “He can’t possibly know my schedule.”

Yachi’s smile widens. “We all keep up with you.”

And Kageyama feels guilty all of a sudden, because he’s been so busy thinking about Oikawa-san – and failing to fuck him, his traitorous mind adds – that he doesn’t know what Yachi’s been up to since Christmas. He hasn’t even asked.

“How is Tsukishima?”

Yachi looks up, surprised. “He’s – fine? Why are you asking?”

“I – you –”

“Do you care about Tsukki more than you care about me?”

“I just –” Just. “You look happy around him, when he’s not being a jerk.”

“So, you think if he’s okay then I’m okay.”

“No.” Yes. Because if Oikawa-san was happier around Kageyama, if Oikawa-san was less of a jerk, if Oikawa-san would just give Kageyama a hint on what he wants from him, Kageyama would be happy, too.

“That’s not how it works,” Yachi says patiently, pouring more rice porridge into Kageyama’s bowl. “I mean, I’m happy when Tsukki isn’t being a jerk, but I make myself happy, primarily.”

“Oh.” Kageyama wants to hit himself, because he’s made this about Oikawa-san again when it’s not about him at all. And because he’s fucked up the most basic of conversations with Yachi. “How are you?”

Yachi laughs. “I’m okay. Happy. Though I’d be happier if you’d take care of yourself so I don’t have to.”

“Sorry.” Kageyama was taking care of himself. He just also had to take care of his frozen pipes at the same time.

“You should be. I’m doing unpaid care work when I should be working on my final project.” Yachi says it like an accusation, but her eyes are crinkling.

Her project on beautiful things. It sounds ambiguous and mesmerizing, but then Yachi had taken a picture of Kageyama as inspiration back in October and Kageyama was as unambiguous and non-mesmerizing as people get, so he doesn’t know if it’s coming along that well. Yachi should have taken a picture of Oikawa-san instead. “How is that going?”

“Good.” Yachi’s eyes stop crinkling. She bites her lip. “I’m meeting with my advisor next week to talk about it.”

“You’ll have to show me the photos sometime,” Kageyama says. He probably won’t understand the meaning behind the photos, but he wants to try.

Yachi chews on her lip some more. Then she nods at Kageyama’s rice porridge. “Eat your food and you have a deal.”

~

But Yachi texts Kageyama on Tuesday to cancel Tuesday Coffee. Kageyama doesn’t check his phone until it’s too late, when he’s already sitting down with a cup of steamed milk at their usual table. Yachi doesn’t give a reason for why she’s cancelling, and Kageyama imagines Yachi and Tsukishima going on a date at another café without him. He feels incredibly lonely, watching as the teenagers occupying the table next to him laugh and flick sugar at each other, thinking about how he and Hinata used to do the same with less sweetener and a whole lot more salt. Yachi would join in sometimes, and Yamaguchi, and Tsukishima would just look on, seemingly bored but definitely keeping score. Kageyama stands, asks for a takeaway cup, and heads out, the teens’ roars of laughter following him out onto the street.

He takes the subway back to the Tokyo Gas Gymnasium, even though FC Tokyo doesn’t have any practice today. An adult recreational team is using the volleyball court, playing a game amongst themselves. They’re having fun, too. Just having fun, not keeping score, not caring about points or positions or tactics, and Kageyama watches them play the same sport he plays in a very different way.

The rec team stays for a couple of hours. When they leave, Kageyama misses their chatter and the sounds of their shoes squeaking on the court. The gym custodian slouches out of his office moments later to take down the nets, but Kageyama stops him. The custodian looks irritated.

“You have to book the courts to use them, mister.”

Kageyama shows him his FC Tokyo membership. “I’ll take down the nets,” he tells the custodian. “You can go home if you want to.”

The custodian’s eyes widens. “You’re Kageyama Tobio? Can I get an autograph?” He fumbles around as if he’s trying to find a pen. “Wait one second.”

Kageyama doesn’t wait. He heads into the storeroom to find a volleyball. When he comes back out, the custodian has a notebook and pen out.

“Are you new?” Kageyama asks.

“Yes, why?” The custodian flips the notebook to a page and points. “Sign here.”

“None of the old – ” Kageyama stops. On the page next to his is another autograph. It’s decorated with hearts and signed in purple ink. “That’s Oikawa-s – Oikawa Tooru’s signature.”

“Yeah! You know him? Isn’t he amazing?”

“I suppose.” Kageyama mutters. He writes his name at the bottom left corner. “Here you go.”

“He was so nice when I asked for his autograph as well.”

“Right.”

“And he’s so beautiful. I can see why all the women like him.”

Kageyama goes to the back of the court and does a jump serve to drown the custodian out.

“Wow! That’s just like Oikawa Tooru’s serve. Did he learn it from you?”

Kageyama freezes. He hadn’t intended it to be an Oikawa-san serve. “What makes you think that he learned it from me?”

The custodian brightens. “I mean, your form is exactly the same, and Oikawa’s just started serving like this this season, so I assumed…”

Exactly the same, even though Kageyama hadn’t meant for it to be. He goes back to the service line. “What about this one?”

He serves again, this time concentrating on the image of his own serve from last summer, when Oikawa-san was still a memory and not a category five hurricane wrecking havoc on Kageyama’s life.

“Still same.” The custodian is basically bouncing off his feet now. “So how do you know Oikawa Tooru? Did you play together once? Are you his senpai?”

“This practice is private,” Kageyama says. “Please leave.”

“What? But you just wanted me to – ”

“Please.” Kageyama bows.

The custodian is silent for a minute. And then: “fine. Fucking weirdo.”

Kageyama waits until the custodian’s footsteps have faded before straightening up. He’s shaking, and the butterflies are back, fluttering nervously in his chest. It’s never been like this before; Kageyama has always known what his serves looked like, what it was lacking. For a long time, Kageyama had known, in his muscles, in his bones, that his serves looked nothing like Oikawa-san’s. And then, when he was able to copy Oikawa-san, he had known what he had to do to get the serves right. Now, when he doesn’t want to copy Oikawa-san, he can’t.

Kageyama takes out his phone and films himself serving. He lines up some water bottles and films himself doing tosses. Afterwards, he watches himself in the videos. He hits the replay button again and again, but what he sees is the same: he can’t shake off Oikawa-san even though he wants to.

His own lack of control scares him.

~

The next morning, Kageyama gets a text from Yachi asking if they could get ice cream after Kageyama finishes practice. Kageyama almost says no, because he feels like absolute shit from yesterday. But in the end, he agrees to go. Maybe Yachi would have some advice for him on how to move on from Oikawa-san. Yachi had to move on from Kiyoko-san once.

It doesn’t work out quite as well as planned. Coach makes them do extra strength practice, and by the time Kageyama meets Yachi i n the entranceway of the gym, it’s already nine thirty. Yachi’s sitting in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs attached to the wall in a line, doodling in a notebook. Half the lights are out, and she’s concentrating so hard to make out what she’s drawn in the semi-dark, she doesn’t hear Kageyama approach her.

“Hey,” he says, and she jumps.

“Hi.”

“Tsukishima isn’t coming?”

“No.” Yachi tucks her notebook back into her bag and picks up her scarf. “He kind of expected your practice to run late and didn’t want to wait around.”

“Sorry.” Kageyama takes out his phone to find the closest ice cream place in the area. “It’s –”

“Let’s just get ice cream at a conbini, yeah?” Yachi says, smiling. She looks distracted. Her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “It’s too cold to stand around in an ice cream parlour anyway.”

Kageyama is about to say that it would be just as cold to stand around in a conbini, but Yachi doesn’t seem like her usual self today, and he doubts his observation would be of much help.

He shoulders his duffel bag to adjust its position, then reaches out to touch her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Yachi smiles again. It doesn’t look right. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

They make their way to the Lawson down the street. Yachi is quiet the entire time, and Kageyama wants to ask her again if she’s okay, but he can’t think of the words to say it properly, so they both walk in silence. It had snowed again throughout the day, and, judging by the pristine whiteness on the ground, it hadn’t stopped until recently. Kageyama slows down and walks behind Yachi, watching as she makes fresh footprints on the blank canvas of snow. He watches his feet follow her footsteps, and unwittingly, thinks about how he’s always heedlessly following Oikawa-san’s footsteps. Your form is exactly the same, the custodian had said, and Kageyama is frustrated all over again, because somehow, he’s still unable to outpace Oikawa-san.

The heaters at Lawson are turned all the way up. The cashier is lounging behind the counter, not even bothering to hide the fact that he is playing a game on his cell phone. He glances up as they pass by him, but quickly looks back down again.

Kageyama makes his way towards the freezers. His calves are aching from all the strength training they did today, and he wants to ice them in case the pain gets worse. The conbini sells ice in four-pound bags. Kageyama will have to haul the bag home.

“You can just nick some from the soda machines, you know?”

And it’s like someone’s spiked a cross-court right into Kageyama’s chest. He drops the bag of ice he’s holding. “Oikawa-san.”

“Yoohoo, Tobio-chan.” Oikawa-san is holding a six-pack of beer to his chest. Bits of water cling to his hair. His nose is red from the cold. “You’re not planning to put all that ice into your weird milk drinks, are you? That’s not how you make ice cream, you know?”

“I’m not…Yachi’s the one who wants ice cream.”

“Yachi?”

“She’s – ” Kageyama looks for Yachi by the ice-cream fridges, but she’s not there. “She’s our manager from high school,” he resigns himself to saying. “Short, with blond hair.”

“Ah, manager-san,” Oikawa-san says. “The cute one. You’ll have to introduce us.”

“She doesn’t want to meet you,” Kageyama blurts out.

Oikawa-san raises his eyebrows. “Jealous, are we?”

What Kageyama meant was Yachi doesn’t seem to be in a state to meet anyone tonight. Not Oikawa-san, not Kageyama. Something is wrong, but Kageyama doesn’t know how to ask her about it.

“Kageyama.”

And Yachi is standing in the middle of the store, nowhere near the ice cream, looking lost. Oikawa-san glances at Kageyama, then steps forward.

“Manager-san.” Oikawa-san smiles at Yachi, the smile he uses on all the women. “Tobio-chan said you were getting ice cream. Mind if I join you?”

Yachi just stares at him. Oikawa-san’s smile falters. Then Yachi’s lip tremble, and she looks like she’s going to cry. “I’m going home,” she says, and dashes out of the store.

Kageyama feels as if the pit of his stomach has dropped away. He’d never seen Yachi upset before, had never even thought she had the capacity to be upset, but now she clearly crying and abandoning the ice cream she’d wanted to get earlier this evening. Kageyama wants to go after her, but his legs stay stupidly rooted to where they are.

“Broke that girl’s heart, did you, Tobio-chan?” Oikawa-san is smiling that smile again. The gorgeous one. The shit-eating one.

Kageyama wants to throttle him. “Shut up.”

Oikawa-san bends to inspect a box of band-aids on sale on the bottom rack. “But then I’d be working under the assumption that you won her heart in the first place, which is obviously impossible.”

“I said, shut up.”

Oikawa-san straightens up. He’s so close that Kageyama can feel the warm puff of his breath on his cheek. Kageyama hadn’t even realized he’d stepped into Oikawa-san’s space. His heart beating loud and fast all of sudden, and he feels overwhelmed by the closeness. But something else courses in his chest; Oikawa-san always lets Kageyama close and then fucks Kageyama up to get ahead. What if Kageyama let Oikawa-san close? Would Oikawa-san fall for the same trick?

So he stands his ground, watches as Oikawa-san lean in close, as if he’s going to kiss Kageyama.

Then Oikawa-san moves back. He tosses Kageyama the box of band-aids. Kageyama catches it out of reflex. “Here, you might need this if you want to fix things between you.”

Kageyama stares at the box incredulously. “What would I do with it?”

“It’s symbolism. Are you too dumb to get the meaning, Tobio-chan?”

“I don’t even know what it is I have to fix.”

“You were always an insensitive little genius.”

Kageyama ground his teeth. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair of Oikawa-san to kiss Kageyama, to jerk Kageyama off, to make Kageyama go dizzy with want and tenderness, and then bring up the whole genius thing again before Kageyama could reciprocate and do all those things to him.

“I’m sorry,” he snaps. “I’m sorry that I was an insensitive little genius. And I’m sorry I’m too dumb to get your stupid symbolism or metaphor or whatever about how to fix my friend’s heart. I don’t even know what broke it in the first place. I couldn’t find the right words to ask. I don’t want to be a dumb, insensitive genius, but I am.”

Oikawa-san inhales, his eyes wide. Kageyama hates him for looking so beautiful. “Tobio.”

“Why am I talking to you, anyway?” Kageyama mutters. He wills the adrenaline rushing through him to go away, presses a hand to his stomach to stop the butterflies from beating their wings. They’re fake, he tells himself, and moves past Oikawa-san towards the ice cream. He’ll get Yachi’s favourite. Two cartons of them. Then he’ll go up to her apartment and ask her what’s wrong.

A hand reaches out to stop him as he’s opening the fridge. It’s the first time Oikawa-san’s touched him since, well, since last time. He can feel every callous on Oikawa-san’s palm. His body remembers every one of them. He hates that his body remembers. “Tobio,” Oikawa-san says. His voice is softer, tinged with surprise. “Yachi-san is going to want some time to herself. Text her tonight, have ice cream with her tomorrow.”

Kageyama shivers. He makes himself snatch his hand away. “Why would I take any of your advice?”

Oikawa-san blinks. Haven’t you always wanted it? He doesn’t say.

Kageyama takes out the two cartons of ice cream. His shins twinge, and he thinks of retrieving the abandoned bag of ice on the conbini floor, but he doesn’t want to hang around Oikawa-san for any longer. His legs will just have to wait till he gets home. “I’m going to pay now,” he tells no one in particular.

The cashier is smirking as he checks out Kageyama’s purchases. His phone screen is dark. He’s been watching them the whole time, Kageyama realizes. “Got everything you need?” he asks.

“Yes, thank you.” Kageyama digs around for his wallet.

“You sure?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t know what the cashier is hinting at; he’s too cold and tired to try to deduce. Where is his wallet? “How much?”

The cashier rattles off a number, but Kageyama’s too distracted to register what it is. He can’t find his wallet. A cold wave of dismay courses through him. Shit. He won’t have to borrow money from Oikawa-san, would he?

“Customer-sama,” the cashier drawls. “There’s a line-up.”

“I – ”

“I’ll get it.” Oikawa-san is suddenly behind him. The hairs at the back of Kageyama’s neck snap to attention. “Tobio, wait for me outside.”

Kageyama nods before he’s fully comprehended what’s happening. Once he’s back out in the cold though, he realizes what he’d agreed to. But it’s too late. The doors close as he hears the cashier ask Oikawa-san, “Do you have everything you need?”

He considers leaving, but that would be rude and rather ungrateful. The thought of having to thank Oikawa-san makes him grimace. Oikawa-san would probably make Kageyama bow in gratitude and take a self-congratulatory shaky selfie just like last time.

He waits. The wind picks up. The parking lot is empty except for a small blue Toyota Yaris curled up in a corner against the cold. Kageyama is fumbling around for his gloves when a blast of warm air hits his back.

“Thank you for your patronage,” the cashier sings. “Have a great night!”

Kageyama takes a deep breath and turns around. He’s just going to mutter a quick thank you and then leave, but Oikawa-san is grabbing his hand and pulling him to the side of the conbini, and then he’s pressing his lips to Kageyama’s, harsh and unforgiving.

Insensitive little genius.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Oikawa-san says, before kissing Kageyama again. He bites at Kageyama’s lip, and Kageyama gasps.

Did what? Kageyama forgets to ask, because Oikawa-san deepens the kiss. He slips his tongue into Kageyama’s mouth and then slows the pace. He takes his hands off Kageyama’s biceps and loops his arms around Kageyama’s neck, pulling him close, turning the kiss strangely gentle.

It feels good, so good that it takes Kageyama ages to remember that he’s angry, that the last thing he wants is for Oikawa-san to take him by surprise again and take control. “Wait,” Oikawa-san had said, and Kageyama had waited. He digs his fingers into Oikawa-san’s hipbones, wanting to leave bruises. He wants to even out the score, wants Oikawa-san to wait for Kageyama instead of the other way around. I can play this game, too, he thinks as he shifts his leg so that his thigh is pressed up against Oikawa-san’s groin. He rubs it a little experimentally, and the sound Oikawa-san makes sends a thrill through him. He moves closer, and does it again.

Oikawa-san is clutching at Kageyama now. When Kageyama stops moving his leg, Oikawa-san tries grinding down, groaning in frustration. His face presses into Kageyama’s neck. Today, he smells of peppermint gum, the mint-green, Airwaves kind that always takes Kageyama by surprise by how strong it is. But the smell is subtle. It catches on the edge of Kageyama’s senses and makes him want to bite Oikawa-san all over, everywhere, just to chase it.

He almost does, but he stops himself. He’s not supposed to the chasing tonight. Kageyama leans back in to bite at Oikawa-san’s jaw, hoping that it’ll hurt, just a bit. Oikawa-san hisses, and Kageyama waits, waits for Oikawa-san to ask Kageyama to go home with him. But Oikawa-san just keeps kissing him in that strange, gentle way, and Kageyama finds himself slowing down as well, losing himself to the kiss, and before he can help it, he hears the words, “You want to come to my place?” tumbling out of his mouth.

Kageyama jerks back, horrified. That wasn’t what he wants to say. But he catches Oikawa-san rolling his eyes. “Whatever, just hurry it up.” Oikawa-san sounds breathless, and he grinds down on Kageyama’s leg again, and Kageyama can’t help but feel a stab of victory.

But once they’re back in Kageyama’s apartment, Oikawa-san doesn’t hurry. He kisses Kageyama slow and lingering, takes his time in divesting Kageyama of his clothes. His hands pause when they brush over the Japanese flag embossed onto Kageyama’s training shirt, but then his thumb smooths it over, and he’s kissing Kageyama again.

He lets Kageyama undress him as well: his navy peacoat, a t-shirt way too thin for a January night, black jeans that make his legs look way better than they should. There are freckles scattered on his shoulders like stars, a dimple on his lower back, and a scar slitting up his left knee that Kageyama doesn’t remember. Oikawa-san slides his hands into Kageyama’s hair when Kageyama hooks his fingers in the waistband of Oikawa-san’s underwear, and Kageyama closes his eyes and exhales, because he has to concentrate on this. He has to make Oikawa-san feel good, to make Oikawa-san want this as well, but then he makes the mistake of looking up. Oikawa-san’s expression is open, unguarded, and the look he’s giving Kageyama – it’s something from another parallel universe. And the aching longing wells up in Kageyama again. It’s the kind of ache that scalds his muscles, the kind that lasts for days. The kind his body had thought it had forgotten but actually remembered, like a gyre circling back.

Disconcerted, he concentrates on taking off the remainder of Oikawa-san’s clothes, trying to slow down the quickness of his breath. But it doesn’t work. When he brushes his lips against the tip of Oikawa-san’s cock, Oikawa-san lets him. When he opens his mouth and takes Oikawa-san in it, Oikawa-san lets him. Oikawa-san is letting Kageyama take full control now, and he’s responding, all breathy moans and desperate encouragements. And Kageyama should have won by now, now that Oikawa-san’s here and wanting Kageyama, now that Kageyama’s doing all the things Oikawa-san has done to him in bed and more, but he knows that he’s lost when Oikawa-san sighs out his name, when hot come slides down his throat. Kageyama knows he’s lost when Oikawa-san is looking at him and looking at him and looking at him, when Oikawa-san can see this stupid longing written on Kageyama’s face.

Oikawa-san’s expression shutters, like it does when he knows Kageyama wants something from him. Kageyama waits for Oikawa-san to push him away, waits for him to say, “No way Tobio-chan.” But Oikawa-san only tugs him up and kisses him.

“You suck at giving head,” is what he really says.

Then he’s taking Kageyama in his hand and he’s jerking Kageyama off nice and slow. When Kageyama comes, all worked up and shuddering and confused, Oikawa-san holds him close and says all the things like “Yeah, give it to me” and “that’s good, that’s good, just like that.” He’s coaxing and patient, all the things that Kageyama has only imagined Oikawa-san being.

But perhaps he is imagining this. Because Kageyama wouldn’t feel as bewildered and soft as this in real life. He wouldn’t have been okay with losing. He would have been angry and then determined. He would have wanted to win. But slowly, suddenly, he’s uncertain what will come out of it if he does. This isn’t the kind of sure victory that comes with volleyball. Kageyama won’t advance to play the next team or get recognized by scouts as the next best setter in the prefecture. There aren’t any scouts here, and Kageyama doesn’t want to move onto another team. He thinks he just wants to stay here and play Oikawa-san again and again, until they’re both exhausted and dizzy from it. If he loses again like this time, and what he gets is the best handjob in the world, Kageyama thinks he’d be okay with it. And that...that has to be a mistake, because hadn’t Kageyama wanted to win because he could beat Oikawa-san and move on and be better?

“Are you actually thinking, Tobio-chan?” Oikawa-san is lying in between Kageyama’s legs, and he brushes his lips to Kageyama’s thigh before continuing, “Can your brain handle it?”

“Shut up,” Kageyama says, for the millionth time today. But he finds that he doesn’t mean it. This time, Kageyama pulls Oikawa-san to kiss him, and, for the first time since middle school, doesn’t think about winning.

~

Yachi’s eyes are still red and puffy when she lets Kageyama into her apartment the next day. “Sorry about the mess,” she says, “I wasn’t really expecting anyone to come over.”

Kageyama takes in the mess of sketches littered all over the floor, the overexposed photographs hanging off wooden pegs on laundry lines. “I was going to come over last night,” he says. “But you were…upset?”

Yachi’s mouth trembles, and she presses a hand over her eyes. And Kageyama’s heart sinks. He’s said it wrong again, made it sound like a dumb question instead of letting Yachi know that Kageyama does understand that she’s upset and doesn’t mind her talking about it to him.

“You were upset.” He tries again. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Yachi’s hand doesn’t leave her eyes, but her cheeks are starting to get damp, and she’s shaking. “No,” she says. “I really don’t.”

“Oh,” Kageyama says, floored.

“It’s just school.” Yachi moves her hand away. Her eyelashes are wet. “And stupid men.”

“Is this about Tsukishima?” Kageyama asks. He kind of wishes it is. He’d like any excuse to pick a fight against Tsukishima knowing that he’d win.

“Yes! No. Kind of.”

“I’ll challenge him to another three-on-three and make him lose,” Kageyama offers quickly.

Yachi laughs wetly. “That’s sweet. And also a bit arrogant.”

“Tsukishima isn’t that great a player. Besides, my teammates are all on Team Japan. Who does Tsukishima have?”

“You can’t solve all my problems with volleyball, Kageyama-kun.”

“I can.” Certain events that happened recently could be considered evidence against his assertion, but Kageyama stands by it.

“Not relationship problems. And anyway, it’s not just about Tsukki.” Yachi looks up at the ceiling before continuing: “my advisor doesn’t like my project. He thinks it’s too vague. ‘Beautiful things,’ he said, ‘what does that even mean?’” She kicks at a ball of paper lying on the floor. It rolls over to where Kageyama is standing. “He said that ‘beautiful things’ should be implicit in my work, because no one would create art if they couldn’t already appreciate the inherent beauty of the world in which art was created.”

“Oh,” Kageyama says again. “That makes no sense to me.”

“He didn’t understand the motif of butterflies, even though I explained it to him.”

Kageyama doesn’t understand the butterflies either. He just remembers them blinking in and out of existence, that evening in Harajuku. And he remembers them in his stomach last night, and all the nights in middle school and high school when the thought of Oikawa-san wouldn’t leave him alone. They’re fake, he’d told himself. He can’t possibly tell Yachi that now.

“It’s just,” Yachi is saying. “Butterflies are a motif because they retain memories of when they were caterpillars. Even when they’ve changed so much, they still remember .”

Kageyama bends down to pick up the ball of paper Yachi’s kicked over to him. He unfurls it. It’s a printout of the photo she took of him back in October. Kageyama looks surprised in the photo. His mouth is a little open, and he’s squinting at the camera, trying to focus on it despite the afternoon sun being in his way. Somehow, the way the sun splashes on his face makes him look young, the way he did when he was in high school. He frowns at himself, and wonders what the butterflies had to do with him.

“So butterflies are beautiful because they remember things?” he asks.

“No.” Yachi takes the photo out of Kageyama’s hands and sighs, trying to smooth it out on the front of her leg. “They’re beautiful because they remember things despite change.”

That’s not necessarily a good thing. The image of Oikawa-san floats up again, unbidden. The new closeness of him, the same old way he said the same old words. Insensitive little genius.

Kageyama still doesn’t understand. He’s not sure if he’s ever understood why Yachi had wanted to take pictures of beautiful things. He doesn’t know what those beautiful things are. Yachi is looking at him expectantly, like she wants him to say something. But Kageyama’s never been good at talking, and no words come to mind, so he just looks back, letting the moment stretch between them, letting the tension grow and grow.

Finally, Yachi looks down. “Maybe I should start a new project. That’s what my advisor says I should do. Rethink. Reassess.”

She sounds so defeated. Kageyama shakes his head. “Can’t part of this project be part of the new one?” He swallows, because part of him feels like Yachi’s advisor is right, that for the past fifteen minutes, Yachi hasn’t told him what specifically her current project is on because it was too vague. He doesn’t want to be insensitive and tell Yachi he doesn’t understand what she’s saying, but he has to. “What was your old project really about?”

Yachi stares at him. She opens her mouth, then closes it. And then she’s crying again. “I don’t know,” she says. “What do you think it was about?”

Kageyama wonders if he should get her a tissue, or a mug of tea, or something. He spies a tissue box lying next to one of the legs of Yachi’s desk, picks it up, and hands it to her. “I don’t know,” he says, as gently as he can. “It’s your project.”

Yachi honks into the tissue. “I miss home.”

Kageyama’s brain can’t process the sudden change in topic quickly enough. “Sorry?”

“Back home, my art had a theme. Remember how I’d make posters for the team? How I’d take pictures of you and Shouyou and make you seem like you were flying? How I’d sketch the two of you and Tsukki and Yamaguchi scrimmaging in the fields? I really liked doing that. I liked it because you were part of my life and my art was part of my life.”

Kageyama frowns. “What’s that got to do with butterflies?”

“Because,” Yachi says. She takes another tissue out of the box and wipes her eyes with it. “Everything’s changed, and I wanted to remember. But I can’t keep making posters for art class, and you’re busy with volleyball and stuff, and Tsukki doesn’t really care, so I tried to make memories out of new things. To store memories in new things.”

“I don’t get it. Why can’t you keep making posters? I think your posters were great.”

“I don’t get it either,” Yachi says tightly.

“Well,” Kageyama says, trying to think, “you’re welcome to come to practice and take pictures, if you want. Coach says our manager is bad at PR, and can’t make posters to save his life. Ushijima-san’s no Hinata. I don’t think he can really fly; he’s not as quick. But he’s good enough to be a poster boy. You might have to photoshop him though, but I know you’re good at photoshop because there’s no way Tsukishima looks as good as he did on your posters.”

Stunningly, Yachi laughs, and the tension between them breaks. Relief floods Kageyama’s body. “I did photoshop him. Tsukki asked me one day to edit out his pimples. He was really insecure about them back then.”

Ohhhh. That’s new blackmail material. Kageyama grins. “Did you photoshop Hinata as well?”

“He did try to bribe me into making him look taller.”

Kageyama snorts. “He told me he’s grown an inch this past year. I don’t believe him. I haven’t grown any.”

Yachi puts the tissue box back on her desk. “I don’t think Shouyou’s grown since second year.”

“Exactly.”

“I wonder if Yamaguchi has grown.”

“You’d have to ask Tsukishima. I haven’t heard from Yamaguchi.” Maybe he should call Yamaguchi, to ask how he’s doing, but that might be awkward. Kageyama isn’t the type to call people to ask about them.

Yachi’s face falls. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Tsukki and I – ” Yachi’s voice is small. “I might have broken up with him.”

“What? Why? Didn’t you just go on a date on Tuesday?” Instead of Tuesday Coffee?

“Tuesday?” Yachi echoes. “Oh. I saw my advisor that day. That’s why I had to cancel. He made me feel awful after.”

“Oh.” Kageyama feels stupid now. “I thought…”

“You thought I’d ditch you for a date with Tsukki?” Yachi is frowning at him now. “Why would I do that? You’re important to me, too.”

“I -” Kageyama doesn’t really know. He’s never been that good at friends. “You broke up with Tsukishima?”

“Well, I didn’t tell him explicitly, but he never seemed to care when I talked about my project or about home. And you know how frustrating it is, when he’s uninterested and sarcastic about everything.”

Kageyama doesn’t think there is a time when Tsukishima is not uninterested and sarcastic about everything, but he nods.

“And when I told him I didn’t want to see him, he just shrugged.” Yachi’s voice is quiet, but the corner of her mouth is trembling.

Kageyama’s heart aches. “You know how he is. He pretends he’s uninterested in something but he’s actually extremely into whatever it is.” He thinks of the first half of first year, when Tsukishima was uninterested in volleyball but not really.

“I just want, I don’t know, some form of positive reaction.”

A positive reaction from Tsukishima would be like a smirk. “I think Tsukishima misses home as well.”

Yachi gives Kageyama a look. “Why would you think that?”

“Because he wouldn’t come out on Tuesdays to listen to the two of us go on about Miyagi just for the fun of it. I think he could do without seeing me every week.”

“Don’t say that!” Yachi says, but she looks sheepish and doesn’t correct Kageyama.

Kageyama shrugs. “You know it’s true. Tsukishima’s always listening though, because he’s always laughing when his head is turned away.”

“You think so?”

“For the longest time I thought he was laughing at me. But he was just laughing at the stories.”

Yachi laughs. “Oh, Tsukki. Still so afraid to show his emotions.”

Yachi gets out the ice cream Kageyama had brought over, the ube-flavoured kind that had gotten really popular in their third year, so much so that Coach Ukai used to save a separate stash for them just in case his stock sold out by the middle of the day. The ice cream is half-melted by now, but they eat it anyway, pale purple sugary milk dripping from the cones down their fingers. Yachi doesn’t ask Kageyama if he misses home as well, or how much. But Kageyama thinks she knows, from the way she reaches over the couch and threads her fingers between his, her grasp reassuring, as they talk about the time a first year tried to replace Asahi-san’s broken broom with a new one and everyone yelled at him. The time Tsukishima got a 60 in Take-sensei’s third year lit class and the way he’d been salty for a week because Kageyama had scraped by with a 61. The time Hinata tried to slip extra spices into Kageyama’s curry pork bun as a prank and ended up having to eat it himself. “Shouyou couldn’t even handle the teeniest amount of spice!” Yachi says, chortling.

Kageyama smirks. It feels good, to be able to talk about Miyagi and volleyball with someone. Just Miyagi. Just volleyball. In Tokyo, things are more complicated, and everyone is telling him to pay attention to things happening outside of the court because not everything is about volleyball. He has to socialize incessantly with his current team, or do the millions of press releases to talk not about the game but about his feelings on the game once the season starts up again. In Tokyo, there’s Oikawa-san, who was part of Miyagi and volleyball, but also part of the complication now. There’s Oikawa-san, whom Kageyama can’t talk to about their past, present, or future.

Feeling stifled, Kageyama takes another bite of ice cream. It’s too large a bite, and he chokes on it, the sticky sweetness jamming up his throat. Yachi pats him on the back as he coughs. She’s cheered up some now, and is talking about maybe going back to Sendai over the summer for new ideas. Once he swallows down the ice cream, he says, “That’s a good idea.” But when Yachi beams at him, he doesn’t feel as warm as he should have. Yachi’s able to move forward now, but Kageyama still feels stuck. Stuck in an endless cycle of change .

~

It happens again.

And again.

Kageyama can’t help it, but he starts counting the number of times he sleeps with Oikawa-san. The tally goes up from three times in January, to seven times in February, and by the end of March, when national team practice starts up again, it passes twenty. It’s the same kind of thing: Oikawa-san making a move, Kageyama stupidly responding and asking him home, Kageyama letting Oikawa-san do whatever it is he wants to do, and then getting angry at himself for letting it happen.

Oikawa-san is always impatient when they meet up. Sometimes they meet up at the conbini Kageyama and Yachi tried to get ice cream at. Sometimes, Oikawa-san just shows up at Kageyama’s apartment, always wearing that navy peacoat, always looking devastatingly handsome.

Sometimes, Kageyama thinks about giving Oikawa-san a copy of his housekeys, so he can just let himself in. But then he shakes off the thought, annoyed; why would he want Oikawa-san to let himself in? Anyway, Oikawa-san would probably just laugh at him and say, No way, Tobio-chan.

Oikawa-san’s kisses always start feverishly, like he can’t get enough of Kageyama soon enough. He’s always impatient, but it’s all for show. Once, at the conbini, Oikawa-san just starts kissing Kageyama right there in front of the cashier, slipping his hand underneath Kageyama’s shirt and thumbing circles when Kageyama has to break away and pay. Kageyama makes the mistake of looking up at the cashier when he hands over his credit card. The cashier leers at him, and Kageyama looks away. Oikawa-san doesn’t stop touching him. Kageyama’s sure he’s looking straight at the cashier.

Kageyama tries to push back, he tries to make Oikawa-san actually feel like he can’t get enough of Kageyama. To make him feel good in all the right places until he’s panting and desperate for it. But once they cross over the threshold of Kageyama’s apartment, Oikawa-san becomes softer, more gentle, always touching Kageyama like he’s something precious. And it makes Kageyama feel wanted, feel liked. And it is then he realizes that they’re still playing Oikawa-san’s game, that he’s still on the defense, reacting to Oikawa-san’s moves.

Kageyama’s never been fuck buddies with someone, but he’s pretty sure hookups aren’t like this. Normal people don’t sleep with their middle school senpai, their high school rival, their – whatever Oikawa-san is to him now. Normal people wouldn’t feel so out of control, wouldn’t feel like they’re being conducted. Normal people don’t fuck like they’re playing each other in a competitive sports match and also feel like they don’t have to win.

But that’s how it is right now.

And not feeling the need to win is dangerous. Because Kageyama has seen Oikawa-san’s eyelids shutter when he takes in Kageayama’s national team uniform, doesn’t forget how Oikawa-san’s jaw clench when Kageyama brings up an upcoming change in his practice schedule, can’t shake off the feeling of Oikawa-san’s thumb pressed too hard against the embroidered Japanese flag on Kageyama’s sleeve when he holds Kageyama close. Oikawa-san doesn’t usually say anything about Kageyama being on the national team. But in the end, Kageyama doesn’t need Oikawa-san to say anything; he’s memorized the way Oikawa-san’s body is always angled away from his after, the way he brushes Kageyama’s hands away when they’re lying across from each other and Kageyama reaches over to touch him.

No way, Tobio-chan.

~

Kageyama thinks about not wearing his uniform when he and Oikawa-san meet up. But he’s only put the thought into action once, because when he does, Ando notices.

“The uniform not hot enough for the girl you’re seeing, Kageyama?” he asks. They’re the only ones left in the changing rooms, having been charged with taking down the nets that night. “I thought chicks dig sports uniforms.”

“I’m not seeing a girl,” Kageyama says, before he can stop himself.

Luckily, Ando doesn’t understand. “Hey, hey, hey. There’s no need to be embarrassed. Kobayashi saw you guys getting it on behind the conbini down the street. Says she’s got nice legs.”

Oikawa-san does have nice legs. But. “That wasn’t me. I’m not seeing a girl.”

Ando shrugs, stuffing his kneepads into his duffel bag and zipping it up. “Okay, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. Just bring her along to one of our games so the rest of us get a chance to impress her as well.”

Kageyama snorts. But his chest tightens. He’s pretty sure Oikawa-san would rather teach him how to serve than to go to one of his FIVB games. He slips on the purple henley he’s brought with him today. The material is usually soft, the shirt warm, but today, something scratches at Kageyama’s arms, and he feels cold and naked even though the heaters are still on at the gym.

“I don’t think you’d be able to impress anyone.”

“Pshhhh. You think she’d be impressed by your moves? The ones you stole from that Meiji setter?”

Kageyama freezes. “The ones I stole?” He’d been working at separating his own plays from Oikawa-san’s. He hasn’t watched any more Meiji games, and he’s definitely not asked Oikawa-san to teach him any moves.

“Yeah,” Ando says, “Your setter dumps look exactly the same, and the tosses you send towards Ushijima – he’s, well, aptly impressed by them. And we all know he praises Oikawa to the moon and back.”

Kageyama swallows. “Best not let Oikawa-san hear that,” he mutters. “He’d crow about it and then vow to beat Ushijima-san into the dust.” His heart is raging like a tempest; he’s copying Oikawa-san again. But it’s different. Before, Kageyama had wanted to copy Oikawa-san. Now, he was doing it unconsciously. It’s like Kageyama had let Oikawa-san in his volleyball without knowing it, and Oikawa-san is winning again, in the thing where winning matters the most.

Kageyama clenches his hands into fists, digging his fingernails into his palms until he can feel half-moons of pain in his skin.

“That’d be fun to watch. Who do you think will win?” Ando pauses when he sees Kageyama shivering. “Hey, you want my jacket or something?”

“I don’t want your gross jacket. Thanks.” But then he feels the henley scratching at his skin, feels the cold seeping into his bones. And he’s suddenly angry. Why should he wear this stupid purple shirt just to let Oikawa-san win? “Actually, yeah, I’ll take it.”

Ando gives Kageyama a weird look, but he takes his jacket out of his bag. “It’s gross but you’ll take it? So do you want it or not?”

“I’ll take it,” Kageyama says quickly, shielding himself before Ando can throw the jacket into his face. He puts it on after he catches it, and takes a peek into the mirror. The hinomaru is sewn firmly onto the breast of the jacket over Ando’s name, and he can feel the word “JAPAN” sweeping across his back like a typhoon up the Japanese coast. The anger subsides, and Kageyama is left with a strange sort of calm; he’s earned his place on the national team through practice and practice. Why shouldn’t he wear the Team Japan jacket to see his – whomever? Shouldn’t Oikawa-san be at least accepting of Kageyama being on the national team?

When Oikawa-san sees Kageyama in Ando’s jacket that night, he stares and stares. Then he fists his hands at Kageyama’s shoulders.

“Take it off.”

“Why? It’s cold.”

“It’s not your jacket.”

“So?”

“Tobio-chan,” Oikawa-san says, gritting his teeth. “Are you that dense? That’s not your jacket.”

Is that the only reason? Kageyama wants to ask. But he doesn’t, because he wants Oikawa-san to say it, to somehow admit that nothing has changed between them despite everything that has. “Ando lent it to me tonight. It’s too cold.” He takes off the jacket himself, feeling the strange calm he’d felt earlier, and takes his time folding it up.

He can feel Oikawa-san watching him, and when he turns around, he sees that Oikawa-san’s eyes are dark, wild. Oikawa-san rushes at Kageyama, kissing him so hard he almost bruises Kageyama’s mouth. Kageyama lets Oikawa-san kiss him, doesn’t try match Oikawa-san’s pace, brings his hand up to cup Oikawa-san’s neck.

“I thought,” Oikawa-san says between kisses, his face pressed into Kageyama’s shoulder, “I thought I could.”

Kageyama brushes a thumb across Oikawa-san’s cheek. His heart is thumping against his chest. Those damn butterflies. “Thought you could what?”

Oikawa-san leans away. It’s like a mask has slipped over his face; he’s grinning. “Never you mind, Tobio-chan!”

It’s so fake, Oikawa-san’s smile. Even Kageyama can see through it, and Kageyama’s not good at seeing through anyone except possibly Hinata. He glances at the jacket, neatly folded on the kotatsu, feels the purple henley scratching painfully into his back.

“Look, I don’t have to wear the national team jersey if it bothers you.”

Oikawa-san pauses. Then his smile widens. “What makes you think it bothers me? It doesn’t bother me. I don’t care what you wear, Tobio-chan. You look like a lump of coal in all of your clothes. I – ”

“Lump of coal?”

“A hot lump of coal, or whatever. The point is – ”

Kageyama frowns. Why can’t Oikawa-san just say what he really wants to say? “You really don’t care?”

The smile disappears off of Oikawa-san’s face, and he drags Kageyama back in for another bruising kiss. “Leave the purple shirt on.”

Kageyama does.

~

Something changes. In April, Kageyama sees Oikawa-san almost every day. Sometimes, Oikawa-san shows up outside the gym at the end of Kageyama’s practices, and they go have dinner together. When they have ramen one night at a place that reminds Kageyama violently of home, Kageyama finds himself telling Oikawa-san all about his homesickness, that he misses Miyagi; his friends, his high school coaches, his mom and their house above a ramen joint in an alleyway full of cats. And Oikawa-san listens, lets Kageyama have the rest of their gyoza, and holds Kageyama’s hand on the way home. Kageyama memorizes the feeling of Oikawa-san’s hand in his, memorizes the feeling of grasping Oikawa-san’s hand, of having Oikawa-san’s hand in his grasp, as hot starbursts of triumph explode, wild and uncontrollable, in his gut.

Oikawa-san doesn’t comment on Kageyama’s jersey or team jacket again. But his thumbs never come close to touching the embroidered Japanese flag on Kageyama’s sleeve when he holds Kageyama close. He asks about Ushijima-san, or rather, the mistakes Ushijima-san makes during practice, but never about the practice itself. In April, Kageyama’s laundry basket fills up a lot faster than usual. Oikawa-san starts leaving things around. Kageyama finds the black jeans Oikawa-san really likes to wear in his dirty laundry one day, and then there are boxers that are one size too small, shirts that Kageyama remembers from the nights before. Kageyama washes and folds all of them, putting them neatly on his desk whenever he thinks Oikawa-san might show up. And in April, Oikawa-san shows up often, teasing and flirty and lingering, almost as if he’s permanently taken on the persona he had used on all the girls at Aoba Johsai.

But things change again in May. Kageyama goes to Hong Kong to play in the Volleyball Nations League, one of the early competitions in the season, at the beginning of the month. The team manages to advance to the next round, and Kageyama is out sightseeing with Ando, Miya, and a few others the next day, high on the happiness of a victory, when Oikawa-san texts him.

want to meet up tonite?

The euphoria from winning that has kept Kageyama buoyant all day dissipates, and the lights of Victoria Harbour, so beautiful and dazzling and new, fade into a dull darkness. The humid air of Hong Kong in the summertime closes in. Oikawa-san hadn’t asked Kageyama about competitions, so Kageyama hadn’t told him anything. And it’s not like Oikawa-san isn’t hiding things from him. He thinks grumpily of Oikawa-san’s carefully constructed smiles and touches, his deliberate avoidance of certain topics.

He hesitates. They walk past a nightclub, and a loud bass thrums out a hard beat. Kageyama’s heart picks up the rhythm and beats along with it. He reads the message again, and almost trips down some steps he swears weren’t there in the first place. It is Ushijima-san who steadies him and glowers at the phone in his hand.

“Sorry,” Kageyama says, and stows it away. “Oikawa-san was just asking after you.”

Ushijima-san grunts. “Oikawa,” he says, “should have been on the team, but then we’d have to deal with his awful personality. I’d rather have you. You’re adequate.”

Kageyama stares after him. Then pride and elation from winning comes flooding back like the tide, mixed in with indignation and a splash of resentment. Feeling a little reckless, he pulls his phone back out. Kageyama is on the national team because he’d earned it, and Team Japan is able to advance because they’d earned it. Oikawa-san can’t have Kageyama without accepting that Kageyama had gotten the position they had both wanted. He can’t have Kageyama without volleyball.

I’m in Hong Kong for Volleyball Nations League. We won.

A moving ellipsis starts below that. It disappears, then starts again. And disappears again.

Kageyama shoves his phone back into his pocket. The bass from the nightclub has receded, but Kageyama’s heart is still moving to its loud, roaring beat. As the team moves through Central, Admiralty, Wanchai, then back across the harbour to Tsim Sha Tsui, Kageyama thinks about checking what Oikawa-san has to say, thinks about what he might say in return, multiple, multiple times.

But he doesn’t take it out again until he’s back in the room he shares with Ando. Ando’s in the shower, humming loudly to some cantopop song he’d heard earlier on in the evening, so he won’t be able to ask Kageyama about the “girl” he’s seeing.

Kageyama turns his phone screen on and –

There’s nothing.

A sick clench of disappointment goes through Kageyama. All the certainty Kageyama had felt in the last few hours dissolves. Now that he thinks about it, it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t matter whether Kageyama hadn’t told Oikawa-san about the competition. Oikawa-san would have known. Kageyama had totally forgotten Oikawa-san follows the competition schedule closely, watching all the competitions without Team Japan in it.

“I can’t bear seeing Ushiwaka-chan’s ugly mug of a face on TV,” he’d told Kageyama once in March. He had been stirring the curry that was cooking in the pot, and though his voice carried his trademark nonchalance, Kageyama remembers how he’d faltered with the stirring as he sneered out Ushijima-san’s name.

So why had he asked Kageyama to meet up tonight?

“Are you okay, Kageyama?” Ando is towelling his hair in front of their TV. Somehow, Kageyama had missed him coming out of the washroom. “You’re been looking at your phone for ages. There’s nothing to see.”

Kageyama presses his home screen button so his phone would light up.

“Did your girlfriend break up with you?”

The lights of Victoria Harbour shimmer on and off. They remind Kageyama of those butterflies in Harajuku Yachi had tried to store memories in but in the end couldn’t.

“No,” Kageyama says, feeling a cold upwelling of defeat, the first in this season, rise inside him. “There was no girlfriend in the first place.”

~

For the rest of the summer, Kageyama concentrates on practice and competitions. Team Japan wins all their games in the Volleyball Nations League and brings home the cup. And coach doesn’t make Kageyama go to press conferences anymore; this season, Ushijima-san is the team’s representative, and he gives blunter, more matter-of-fact answers than Kageyama ever could. Kageyama doesn’t know why Coach couldn’t picked someone like Miya Atsumu in the first place.

With World Championships coming up, it’s easy, then, to not think about Oikawa-san and how they haven’t talked since May. Once Kageyama concentrates on winning, it’s hard for him to make space for anything else. Volleyball is again front and centre of his life, and by July, Kageyama’s plays are his own again, to the disappointment of the janitor whose name he’s learned is Ogino. He texts Hinata and people from Karasuno often, more so to make them jealous about winning international tournaments than to drown out the text Oikawa-san had left unanswered in his inbox, and spends Tuesday Coffee making plans with Yachi to go back home in August while Tsukishima looks on , seemingly bored, covering one of his ears with his headphones but leaving one ear uncovered.

It’s easy until Miya Atsumu suggests they go to the Meiji game on Saturday as a team outing. Apparently, Meiji has not lost at all either this season, and Oikawa-san is playing more aggressively than ever.

“I’ve been talking to their setter,” Miya Atsumu says, as they file out of the gym that evening. “He says he can get us free tickets.”

Ando snorts. “You just want to go because you want to hit on him.”

Miya Atsumu sniffs. “I don’t see how that’s a problem unless you want to hit on him as well.” He turns to Kageyama. “Besides, Tobio-kun wants to go, too.”

“Do you, Kageyama?” Ando asks.

“No.”

“Oh, come on!”

“Nobody wants to go, Miya.”

And yet, on Saturday, Kageyama finds himself sandwiched in between a very excited Miya Atsumu and an attentive Ushijima-san in some of the best seats in the behind. The arena is packed, as Kageyama has come to expect of it, and the crowd ripples purple and proud.

The game starts promptly at eight. When Oikawa-san comes out, the arena explodes into screams, and Oikawa-san waves, grins, and flashes a peace sign at the spectators. It’s exactly like the first Meiji game Kageyama went to, the thousands upon thousands of fans, Oikawa-san poised to play in a way that makes Kageyama breathless, Kageyama taking him in, memorizing every single one of his motions.

Then it’s Oikawa-san’s turn to serve, and everything is different.

The serve isn’t the monstrous, ever-evolving one the Meiji crowd knows Oikawa-san for. It’s slower, floatier, more deceptive, hovering in the air like an oversized butterfly. It’s the one Kageyama had failed to ask Oikawa-san to teach him in middle school, the one he’d spent hours on the sidelines trying to copy.

The serve lands in between two back-row players on the opposing team. The crowd Oooooohs; Oikawa-san has never used this serve in varsity games before. He does it again.

The third time Oikawa-san walks back to the behind to serve, he catches Kageyama’s eye. Oikawa-san grins, feral, but there’s a small amount of gentleness in the smile, too. It reminds Kageyama of the nights they’d spent together, when Oikawa-san would make Kageyama feel so good, so patiently, so gently. Then, there had nothing for Kageyama to imitate, only to move against Oikawa-san, close his eyes, and learn.

Kageyama watches Oikawa-san serve. But this time, he doesn’t dissect Oikawa-san’s movements in his mind, doesn’t try to embed the parts of it in his memory. They both know that there’s nothing left in the serve for Kageyama to memorize, that, just before Oikawa-san had graduated from Kitaiichi, Kageyama had mastered it. Instead, he recalls the memories the serve brings up – old ones and new, days in the brightly lit Kitaichi gym and nights in the darkness of Kageyama’s bedroom. And he’s caught up by how much more the serve means to him – to them¬ – now, how things have changed.

Their eyes meet again, and it feels like neither of them blink for a long time. Then the whistle blows, and Oikawa-san tosses the ball up and jumps.

The rest of the game passes by in a blur. Kageyama doesn’t even register the end of it. Meiji wins, of course they do, but Kageyama doesn’t feel like he’s lost. On the train home, he briefly wonders if this is what Coach wants him to describe at press conferences: the things he remembers at games, all the feelings of pain and tenderness at the present, the small swell of hope he has for the future.

He’s putting his laundry into the washing machine when the doorbell rings. He’s not expecting anyone, but maybe it’s the landlord. He sets the machine to a normal wash before going to open the door.

“What took you so long, Tobio-chan?” Oikawa-san is pouting. He’s still in his volleyball jersey, but his shorts are slung obscenely low on his hips. His face is all red, and his hair is a mess. “Where have you been?”

Kageyama takes Oikawa-san in. He’d wanted Oikawa-san’s serve before, and then Oikawa-san’s title as best setter in the prefecture, and then he’d wanted to beat Oikawa-san, to win. But now Kageyama just wants him. That’s a very different thing, and yet it feels like the same.

“I was at your game tonight.”

“I know,” Oikawa-san says, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. “I wanted you to be there.”

“You were amazing.”

“It’s all because of you.”

“I know.”

They look at each other. One of the lights in the hallway flickers and dies out.

“Do you want to come in?” Kageyama asks. His blood is pounding in his ears, but there’s a strange absence of butterflies in his stomach. In its place is the calmness from that night Ando lent Kageyama his jacket. Kageyama’s certain he and Oikawa-san are on the same page tonight. Finally, finally.

‘Why didn’t you come to the after-party?” Okay, maybe they’ll be on the same page tonight, eventually.

“I was tired. There’s practice tomorrow.”

“Miya Atsumu asked me out.”

“Did he?” Kageyama doesn’t even care. He reaches out to touch Oikawa-san’s cheek. Oikawa-san doesn’t brush his hand away. Kageyama feels a stab of triumph.

“Iwa-chan overheard. It was the most embarrassing thing. He was like, ‘Aren’t you dating Kageyama, Shittykawa?’”

Kageyama waits.

“And I said, ‘Iwa-chan, the worst possible way to turn someone down is when your best friend turns them down for you because said best friend is jealous he doesn’t get asked out. It’s just not classy!’ And Iwa-chan just gave me the look he always gives me when I’ve pissed him off!”

There are many looks Iwaizumi-san gives Oikawa-san when Oikawa-san’s pissed him off.

“And then Dai-chan gave me the same look because I forgot that he and Iwa-chan were dating and I’ve pissed him off.”

“Are we dating?” Kageyama asks. He doesn’t know what look he’s got on his face right now. Perhaps he looks pissed off as well. Hinata always said so whenever Kageyama was happy.

“Tobio,” Oikawa-san says. And then they’re kissing, reaching across the chasm that’s been there for months, years. Their hands wander all over each other’s bodies, no longer memorizing, but moving because of memory. And Kageyama’s dizzy, so dizzy with this victory. He’s winning, he’s finally caught up.

So, between kisses, he asks, “When are you going to come to one of my games?” He traces the number thirteen at the back of Oikawa-san’s jersey, liking the fact that Oikawa-san’s close, close enough to touch.

Oikawa-san draws back to look at Kageyama. “What?”

“The World Championships are going to be in Tokyo. I can get you tickets.”

“Tickets?” Oikawa-san echoes. His eyes are dark.

“My first game will be on September 13th. You should come.”

“Come to World Championships.” Oikawa-san draws out the words, measuring out each syllable, and, for a second, Kageyama thinks he will say no. “Okay.”

The air whooshes out of Kageyama’s lungs. He doesn’t even realize he’d been holding his breath. “Okay?”

Oikawa-san closes his eyes. “I – I want to try,” he says. Then he grins and flashes a peace sign. “They better be good tickets, Tobio-chan.”

“The best,” Kageyama says firmly.

He tries to not think about it, but the brief pause before Oikawa-san says okay, the slight hesitation before the yes, takes root at the back of his mind.


	4. the beautiful kind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god. i'm so sorry for the delay. grad school and life happened, and now we're in april. i apologize for the fridays missed, and if you're still reading, this chapter is for you.

The whistle blows, and they win.

The stadium erupts into cheers, into fireworks. The audience makes a coordinated wave of victory that goes around and around, surrounding them. Miya Atsumu roars in triumph on the sidelines, Ando raises his fist in exultation, and Ushijima-san just stands there, his face solemn, taking everything in. Kageyama’s thighs are still quavering from his last setter dump, his heart still trembling from the long rally, his fingertips numb from their game.

So this is what winning an international tournament feels like. Exhausted, exhilarated, full of wonder at what they could achieve next, now that the impossible has been achieved. It doesn’t feel very different than winning nationals, or his very first prefectural competition for Karasuno in first year. But it’s as if his body had forgotten the tremendousness of winning, the magnitude of prevailing, and today, as Kageyama is reminded of the feeling again, he shakes at how marvelous it feels.

Kageyama doesn’t think about Oikawa-san until he does, in the home team changing rooms, the rest of Team Japan roaring in excitement.

"Did you _see_ that last spike from Juno?" Ando yells at Takigawa. "It was right on the fucking line. I thought I was never going to get it."

"But you did!" Takigawa yells back, even though he is right next to Ando and is slapping him across the shoulders. "You did, you fucking gem!"

"Party!" Miya Atsumu shouts. "Party at the captain's house!"

"I can't even move," Chiba groans. His eyes are a little red around the rims, and he’s sitting on the floor, legs splayed out and his back slumping against the bench. "Miya’s only able to party because he spent like two minutes on the court."

Ushijima-san stares at Chiba with a small frown on his face, as if contemplating whether to get Chiba onto his feet by insulting his plays or to leave him be. Then, his expression clears, and he turns to Kageyama. “Good game,” he grunts. “That was better than what Oikawa could have done.”

Pride sweeps through Kageyama like a flash flood, and he bows low. “Thank you, Ushijima-san!” And then, a snide voice at the back of his mind that sounds uncannily like Oikawa-san says, _wow, so now you’re seeking Ushiwaka-chan’s approval now, huh, Tobio-chan?_

Oikawa-san! Kageyama wonders what he thinks of the game, of that last toss Kageyama had sent Yamada. The quickness of it. The angle of the spike. Oikawa-san probably wouldn’t tell Kageyama he had played a good game, though. He’d probably look a little miffed, turn his nose up in the air, and say, “As expected of my kohai. That last toss was so well coordinated I hate it.”

Or at least, that is what Oikawa-san would say if they were still in high school. Kageyama tries to imagine Oikawa-san’s reactions now that they’re dating, and he can’t. He doesn’t know.

Kageyama watches as Miya leaps onto the opposite bench and tries to do the moonwalk. Then he takes his bag out from his locker. His hand shakes as he reached for his phone. It must be the adrenaline, he thinks. The shaking is fake.

Thirteen texts from Hinata, all in caps.

Five texts from Yachi, full of kaomojis and congratulating him on his win.

One text from Tsukishima, with only a single crown emoji. And -

One text from Oikawa-san, sent fifteen minutes ago.

_I'm outside at the back. We have to talk._

The trees right outside the Tokyo Metropolitan Stadium are in full bloom, their leaves emerald green and unfurling up towards the sun, their trunks speckled with moss and epiphytes, their branches an orchestral pit for insects and birds. The summer magicks everything alive, and yet Kageyama feels stifled by its heat and humidity.

Oikawa-san is leaning against the wall of the stadium, next to a patch of grass with wild daisies springing up because the gardener probably neglected to get rid of them on purpose. Among the flowers, two swallowtails fly low, their jetblack wings flashing dark against the bright green. Oikawa-san himself is also wearing black. His v-neck t-shirt makes his shoulders broad, his jeans make his legs devastatingly long, his eyes are heavy and hooded.

“Tobio,” Oikawa-san says, without honorifics, without inflection or emotion. He sounds defeated, despite Kageyama’s win. “This isn’t going to work.”

The words are a dull roar in his ears. It drowns out the rush of victory. Everything is bent out of shape and blurry, like Kageyama is looking up from underwater.

“This isn’t going to work,” Oikawa-san repeats. And it’s as if he was speaking to Kageyama underwater too, his voice distant and distorted. But he is the only thing in focus, sharp-edged and brilliantly lit, standing at a carefully constructed distance. It hurt to look at him. “I didn’t come in. I didn’t watch the game. I heard that you'd won, and I hated it.”

Kageyama closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to look. For the past week, he’d tried picturing Oikawa-san at the match, somehow cheering for him, or at least wearing his team colours, just like Kageyama had done while going to all the Meiji matches. And his brain couldn’t come up with an image. He’d brushed it off, thinking it didn’t matter if he couldn’t imagine it, because it would be real, no matter what. “So you came here after the match just to tell me this?”

“I didn’t - !“ Oikawa-san stops. “I stood out here the entire game. I couldn’t go in. I really wanted to watch but I couldn’t. Because - because I hated that it wasn’t me playing. I hated that it was you. It was always you.” Oikawa-san’s voice is so loud. Each syllable is like a storm surge, beating at Kageyama's ribcage, his lungs, his heart.

Because it doesn’t matter if Kageyama had won. Even if Kageyama had won, there would still be no winning. Oikawa-san has to feel like he’d won with Kageyama as well. Only then would they be on the same page, the score evened out. Only then would they be within each other’s grasp.

Kageyama had thought they had evened out the score, the night that Oikawa-san had come to Kageyama’s apartment to tell him he had wanted to try. Now, suddenly, Oikawa-san seems light years ahead again. Kageyama's barely been able to grapple with his feelings, with what he wants, and Oikawa-san's already decided that they won't work out.

Kageyama stands there, helpless. Struggling to keep up. Like he usually is when it came to Oikawa-san. Part of him wishes that everything between them never happened, that everything had remained within volleyball, because, with volleyball, at least he would eventually figure Oikawa-san out. Eventually, the plays would make sense, even if he’d be a step too late. With volleyball, he wouldn’t feel like this, scared and indecisive and out of control all over again.

He swallows. His throat is closed up. He can’t say anything.

“I can’t figure you out.” Oikawa-san sounds like he’s crying. Kageyama’s eyes fly open. And oh fuck, he really is; his eyes are red, his nose wet, his shoulders shaking. “Even when you’re so damn honest all the time. I can’t. I know you’re more than this volleyball genius. But every time I look at you, I can’t forget that part of you, and when I remember, it’s like it overwhelms everything else. I don’t know what I – how you – ”

Kageyama’s hands tremble as he reaches into his pocket. There’s a crumpled up napkin from the restaurant earlier on today. “Do you want a tissue?” It must have been at least a few forevers ago since he’d last said this to Oikawa-san, but the memory is still vivid, luminous, eroding at him like waves, slowly carved into his muscles, his bones.

Oikawa-san looks like he wants to take it. But then he shakes his head. He had snatched the tissue from Kageyama last time. Iwaizumi-san had said, “Blow your nose before you speak,” but Oikawa-san had spoken first, issuing Kageyama the challenge of, “And Tobio-chan, wherever you may go next, I’m going to beat you, too.”

This time, this tissue remains in Kageyama’s hand. He stares at it until he’s just seeing white. If Kageyama could move, move away, he would. But his body is rooted to the ground. It’s not doing anything Kageyama wants it to do. “What do you want from me?” he says at last. Because he still hasn’t figured it all out yet, except for the fact that Oikawa-san doesn’t want _him_.

He looks up. Oikawa-san is still crying. “What did you want from me?”

Oikawa-san chokes. “Fuck,” he says. “I can’t do this. I don’t – I wish this had never happened.”

Hurt slices at Kageyama like cold water. Hurt. Defeat. _I’m going to lose him_ , he thinks. “I wish this had never happened, too,” he says.

He tries to move, and his body finally responds. Oikawa-san doesn’t stop him as he runs away. He doesn’t even want to beat Kageyama, and it feels wrong. But Kageyama doesn’t stop until he’s back in the change rooms, a towel over his head. His vision blurs. Like Oikawa-san, he’s crying.

~

Kageyama runs into Tsukishima and Yachi on his way out of the gym.

“Kageyama-kun!” Yachi is running towards him, all decked-out in red and white, a gigantic smile on her face. Tsukishima trails a little bit behind her, wearing a bandana with a hinomaru design and the english words “JAPAN, GO!” stitched on the side.

“You did so well!” Yachi says, as she reaches him. She draws Kageyama into a tight hug, and there’s nothing Kageyama can do but to hug her back.

Kageyama clears his throat. He wills his voice not to shake. “It was a good game.”

Tsukishima’s staring at him. “Shouldn’t you be making incoherent screeching noises right now, like you did with the shrimp all through high school?”

Kageyama glares at Tsukishima, even though his eyes are sore from crying. “I don’t screech incoherently.”

Yachi pulls back to look at him. “Are you – were you crying?”

“No.”

Yachi frowns. “You were. Stop lying about it.”

“You do look worse than you normally do, King, which is saying a lot.”

“I’m – ” Kageyama says, then stops. There’s no use avoiding it. Kageyama’s always faced problems head on. And Yachi’s reaching down to take his hand, and she giving it a squeeze, and Tsukishima is scowling slightly, but he’s wearing that expression that means he’s willing to give Kageyama good advice even though it might not come out sounding the nicest. And who does Kageyama have, if not his friends, his team from the very beginning?

“It’s Tuesday.”

The expression evaporates off of Tsukishima’s face. “You’re making no sense.”

“Is it too late to get coffee?”

They pause.

Then Yachi gives his hand another squeeze. “Are you sure you don’t want to go out with your team to celebrate?”

Kageyama squeezes back. “You’re my team.” He’d much rather listen to Tsukishima ramble on about the newest boy band tonight than watch his teammates get drunk while he thinks about – while he thinks about –

“Glad my music tastes have your majesty’s approval,” Tsukishima says, even though his ears are slightly pink. So Kageyama had said whatever he’d said out loud. “I suppose we could go get coffee, even though you never do get coffee. Thank god. I’d rather kill myself than have you call me at two in the morning with your gross nasally voice complaining that you haven’t gotten a wink of sleep.”

They both know Kageyama doesn’t have a nasally voice. “Glad my choice of drink has your approval.”

Tsukishima rolls his eyes. “Are you actually making a joke? Let’s go, then. I haven’t got all night. You’ve already wasted half of it with your stupid volleyball game.”

“You were cheering wildly for most of it, Tsukki,” Yachi says. “Don’t pretend you didn’t fanboy over Ando-san’s block.

Tsukishima ignores her, even though his ears are considerably pinker than before. He takes his glasses off and cleans the lenses with his jacket vigorously. “Well, are we going or not?”

Kageyama ignores him. Being able to rile Tsukishima up always makes his day. It almost makes him forget. “You miss volleyball, Tsukishima?”

“Can we just leave?” Tsukishima snaps. “And yes! Doesn’t everyone?” He turns and walks away. Yachi giggles. Kageyama almost smiles.

Their usual coffee shop is closed, so Tsukishima takes them to a café inside a record store in Shibuya. Outside, the crowds and neon lights are loud, but the record store is quiet. A soft English pop song floats between the stacks of vinyl and CDs.

It’s the song that played on the radio the first night Oikawa-san had gone home with him, Kageyama realizes. Oikawa-san had left that night, too, abruptly, unexpectedly. Gone ahead and decided that Kageyama doing things to him wasn’t going to work.

Kageyama isn’t going to ask Tsukishima what the song is called.

“What’s this song called?”

Tsukishima ignores him. He’s got noise-cancelling headphones on, bopping his head to a sampler album that’s got the English word “EMOTION” scrawled in pink across the cover.

Kageyama reaches over and pulls at Tsukishima’s headphones.

“What?”

“What’s this song called?”

“Hell if I know.” Tsukishima says, then frowns. The synthesizers drift in and out of earshot. He listens to the song for a couple more seconds before shaking his head. “I don’t know.”

“Oh,” Kageyama says, disappointed. “Thanks.”

Tsukishima blinks. And he almost looks sympathetic. It’s not a good look on him. “Hey, King – ”

But then Yachi’s calling them over because their drinks are ready, and Tsukishima just shakes his head. “Never mind.”

The corner of the shop where the café sits is darker. Yachi’s got them a booth. Above them, a lightbulb, tainted blue by a lampshade, flickers. Kageyama looks up. “It’s like we’re underwater.”

Tsukishima picks up the decaffeinated drip coffee Yachi ordered for him. “We’re in a _record store_. Not underwater.”

Kageyama looks around for his steamed milk.

Yachi catches him looking. “They didn’t have much milk left,” she says ruefully. “So I got you milk bread instead. I hope that’s okay.”

Kageyama’s chest constricts. “It’s fine.”

“It’s okay if it’s not fine, you know. I just thought milk bread might be the next best thing.”

Kageyama shakes his head. He feels like he can barely breathe. “I just miss Coach’s pork buns.”

“Tsukki’s been trying out some recipes!”

“Only because you’re making me.”

Yachi takes a sip of her tea. “Did you know that he made all his bento back in high school even though his mother could have cooked for him? Tsukki’s really good at making sushi.”

Kageyama stares at Tsukishima. Tsukishima stares resolutely at the floor. “That’s cool.” Kageyama tells him.

Tsukishima looks up, surprised. Then he sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s honestly hard to hate you when you’re so damn honest all the time.”

“I’m – ” Kageyama swallows. This is exactly what Oikawa-san had told Kageyama when he broke up with him. Was it even a break-up? Were they even –

“Well, what is it? Just spit it out already.”

Kageyama bites off a chunk of milk bread and chews to calm the butterflies in his stomach. The bread is sickly sweet, and he pushes it down his throat to get rid of the taste, but the bread ends up sticking to his oesophagus, unwilling to go down, and Kageyama chokes.

“When I said spit it out, I didn’t mean it literally,” Tsukishima says. But he’s thumping Kageyama on his back, and he sounds more exasperated than bored or annoyed.

It takes a while, but the milk bread gets dislodged, and Kageyama can breathe again. He feels lightheaded. It’s not an unfamiliar feeling, he realizes. He feels like this every time Oikawa-san makes a move or moves ahead.

“I had sex with Oikawa-san,” Kageyama blurts out. That was the part that made the most sense, the part where Kageyama had the best grasp of what he was doing and what he wanted, and even then, everything was so fuzzy and uncertain.

“Tell us something we don’t know,” Tsukishima says, rolling his eyes.

“Tsukki,” Yachi says. “This isn’t about you. Be nice.”

“The King doesn’t need me to be nice.” Tsukishima, oddly enough, doesn’t sound unkind. “He needs me to be nasty about his stupid old crush and the awful situation his stupid old crush put them both in.”

Kageyama opens his mouth.

“And don’t tell me he wasn’t your old crush. You’ve been pining after him forever, and he knew it.”

“I don’t think – ”

“No, he did.” Tsukishima hitches up his glasses with just a finger. He only does that when he’s angry. “He knew, but he didn’t know how to deal with it, so he strung you along. Honestly, when he showed up at the party, I knew he wanted to fuck you, maybe to get it out of his system or something. But then you fucked multiple times.”

Kageyama grimaces. “Can you not call it that?”

“What, fucking? It was what it was. What a loser.”

“Hey!” Yachi grabs at Tsukishima’s shoulder. “That’s enough.”

“I wasn’t talking about our genius. I was talk about the other genius. I thought he was good at reading situations.”

“What other situation was there, beside us fucking?” Kageyama stares at the milk bread. He feels sick.

“The situation in which you’re in love with him?” And there it is again, Tsukishima being kind, his voice almost gentle. But his words pull the floor out from under Kageyama’s feet like a riptide.

“What?” The edge slips back into Tsukishima’s tone. “Oh.” He sighs.

“It’s just a crush.” He’s not in _love_ with Oikawa-san. He just wants to wi –

He just wants Oikawa-san. He had wanted just Oikawa-san all along.

“You poor dumb fuck.” Tsukishima says.

“I – ” Kageyama begins. All along. And then he’s suddenly out of the riptide current, and he’s just floating. He feels calm, relieved somehow. He hadn’t been able to put all of this, everything, into words. But Tsukishima had done it for him. Being in love was awful. but at least he knew that this was what it was now. And Oikawa-san –

“Did Oikawa-san know this as well?”

“I think so.” It’s Yachi who speaks this time. Kageyama closes his eyes. Oikawa-san is always one-step ahead.

“For fuck’s sake,” Tsukishima says. He pushes his glasses up again. “You can’t possibly think he’s the one ahead here.”

“Kageyama,” Yachi says, “if anything, I think you’re the one whose got it figured out now. Oikawa-san, well. I think he’s struggling to keep up with you. You being in love with him and him reciprocating your feelings scares him.”

Kageyama’s not sure what reciprocating means. It sounds big. It makes butterflies erupt in his chest all over again. “He said the reason he didn’t want to keep going out was because of our rivalry in volleyball.”

Yachi leans over and wraps an arm around him. “Not everything is about volleyball, Kageyama-kun.”

~

Miyagi in September is still lush and gorgeous. Kageyama arrives home on a sunny morning, and it’s as if nothing has changed: the train still rattles past his room on the railroad tracks, the wildflowers are still in full bloom, and the cats out in the alleyway are still waiting for him to feed them.

His mother cooks him curry on his first night back, with two soft boiled eggs in it, the rice at just the right consistency. He’s tried to make this by himself in Tokyo, but he’s never managed to get it right. She asks him about the tournaments, and he brushes off her questions, telling her that the curry is the best he’s had.

His mother laughs. “Darling boy,” she says, raising her mug of tea to take a sip. She understands. It’s been the two of them for so many years, and since Kageyama’s left for Tokyo, his mother has been by herself. He’s missed her. And so they eat dinner in the quiet, under the lamplight, a thousand and one cicadas buzzing outside in the moon of the late summer.

The next morning, Kageyama heads out at five thirty to take the bus back to Karasuno. The yellow glow of the streetlamp at the bus stop is as soft as it ever was, and the bus driver is the same old lady. She nods at Kageyama. “Going back to practice, boy?” she asks, as if nothing has changed. And Kageyama nods back and goes to sit at the back of the bus, listening to the old songs his mother used to play on the radio, watching as the rising sun set the mountains of Miyagi alight.

Nothing has changed.

Balls are already flying when Kageyama gets to Karasuno, and that’s surprising, because practice usually starts at six. Kageyama’s always early.

“They moved it to five thirty to get ready for the Inter High!” Someone yells. “So I beat you here, Yamayama-kun. It’s what? Your 467th defeat?”

Kageyama can’t even bring himself to scowl. Hinata’s in his old gym clothes, looking like he hadn’t aged a day since they graduated four years ago, his face shining with sweat.

“Your gym clothes still fit you, Dumbass Hinata. You must have been lying about growing taller.”

Hinata rolls his eyes. “I know I have been lying. I just wanted to get a reaction out of you. You seemed kind of off lately. And no excuses being late. Didn’t you get my texts?”

“Phone’s dead,” Kageyama mutters. Thing is, he’s seen the notifications go off. He just didn’t want to open the messaging app and see the last message Oikawa-san left on it.

Hinata stares. “I sent those a week ago.”

Kageyama shrugs.

Hinata stares for a moment more. Then he shrugs and throws the ball he’s holding at Kageyama. And Kageyama only catches it because he’s spent years catching the random things Hinata throws at him. “Whatever. Don’t tell me. Now toss for me, Dumbass Kageyama.”

They warm up outside, under the tree where they had practiced begrudgingly with each during their first days at Karasuno. And something inside Kageyama wakes when he starts feeding Hinata sets. The tempo is so familiar: the smoothness of the ball in his hand, the rushing anticipation of speed, the image of Hinata in midair. The quick. Their quick.

Hinata lands.

“One more,” he says.

It feels like coming home. This feeling of playing for a team who know him as well as they know all their positions and plays on the court. Hinata’s looking at him with eyes of a hawk – no, a crow – ready to swoop in a take whatever he can get. This feeling of more, more, more, unrestricted, unconfined, and infinite.

Kageyama tosses.

“God, you’re all such keeners.” It’s Tsukishima, jumping up to catch the ball. Yamaguchi’s trailing a little bit behind him, looking amused.

“Tsukishima!” Hinata yells, running and jumping onto Tsukishima’s back. “You’re as nasty as ever!”

“Get off me.”

“What are you doing here?” Hinata asks, locking his legs together so that Tsukishima won’t be able to shake him off. He’s grinning. The corner of Tsukishima’s mouth twitches.

“Just passing through.” Tsukishima reaches to push up his glasses, but they’re his sports glasses, already strapped on to the back of his head.

Yamaguchi laughs. “What a liar you are, Tsukki.” He drops into a crouch, ready for Tsukishima to pass the ball to him. Tsukishima does, and Yamaguchi receives it in an underhand pass and sends the ball flying high into the air. “You’re always ready to play.”

They scrimmage until Coach comes out to watch them, when the sun is high in the sky and Kageyama forgets that official practice has ended in the gym. Coach leans against the tree observing, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

“Hydrate, boys,” he says, after they end a particularly long rally. “Or should I say men. God, you’re still so young and green.”

Hinata turns around. “I’m graduating university, Coach!”

“Only barely,” Tsukishima mutters, wiping the sweat off of his forehead.

Coach grins. “Still connecting, I see.”

Yamaguchi grins back. “How’s the new team, Coach?”

Coach runs his hand through his hair, fixing his headband after he messes it up. “Good, good. Well, it’s not like we have a dynamic duo like we did before, but our team this year is pretty well-rounded and extremely hungry for a win. We’re playing Seijoh first in the Inter Highs. One team member is especially excited.”

“Seijoh?” Tsukishima asks, his voice a bit sly.

Kageyama stares resolutely at the ground. But he remembers the first time they’d played Seijoh in the Inter Highs, too. The way Oikawa-san had won and Kageyama had just stared after him, defeat crushing him like gravity in a black hole. The defeat feels real even now, so real, but it also feels slightly different, from another era, maybe from a parallel universe. It’s not about winning now. It’s something else. Maybe what he’s feeling isn’t even defeat.

“ – salty about it, Kageyama?”

Kageyama looks up. “What?”

Hinata rolls his eyes. “I said, are you still salty about the Grand King winning in our first year.”

Kageyama swallows. _Of course I am. Aren’t you?_ He thinks of saying. But that doesn’t sound right. “No,” he says instead. “He’s the one who has to catch up this time.”

“OHHHH!” Hinata crows. “Way to go, Yamayama-kun. That’s our official Team Japan setter! You’re the reigning champion now.”

Tsukishima moves closer to Kageyama. “Still the same old game of chase, huh?” he says quietly.

“Kind of,” Kageyama says. And for the first time, the words sound right coming out of his mouth. “But also not quite. I’m waiting.”

Tsukishima looks at him appraisingly. “You can be a good team player sometimes, King.” He tosses Kageyama the ball. Kageyama catches it. “Come on. It’s your serve.”

~

Coach makes them take a break for lunch, handing out curry pork buns he’d brought from the store. They run the hills with the current team after in the afternoon heat, the sun beating down their backs and the smell of hot pavement and beech trees intermingling as they gasp for air. They’re all sweating by the time they get back to the gym.

Hinata flings himself onto the grass. His face is all scrunched up and red, and he’s panting hard. Kageyama aims a kick at Hinata’s feet and feels a stab of satisfaction as Hinata whines.

“Are you crying because I’ve won?”

“It’s not fair, asshole!” Hinata closes his eyes and presses a hand to his chest. “You’re literally paid to do this every day. I’m just a poor university student who runs in his spare time.”

Kageyama kicks at Hinata’s feet again. “You’re so full of dumbass excuses.”

“I hate you,” Hinata says, but he uses his other hand to pat the patch of grass next to him.

Kageyama sinks down, lets his hands dig into the earth that’s watched him grow and change for three years.

“Welcome home, Dumbass Kageyama,” Hinata mutters, his eyes still closed.

Kageyama closes his eyes as well. “I’m home,” he says.

He’s about to drift off when someone lets out an inhuman shriek. Kageyama blinks his eyes open. That someone, the libero, wearing Noya-san’s number, is running at full-speed towards the gym. “You can’t be here!”

“Oikawa!” Coach yells, and Kageyama flinches. His heart is seizing up. But Coach is pointing at the libero, number four. “Get back here.”

“But Coach,” the libero says.

“Fifteen laps,” Coach snaps. “Now!”

The libero scowls but starts running. And Kageyama begins to think that he’s just heard wrong. But when number four gets close to where Kageyama and Hinata are sitting up, Kageyama realizes. Number four _was_ Oikawa. Just not Oikawa Tooru. Takeru’s taller now, the baby fat from years ago melted into something fiercer, more hungry. The crew cut, the dark eyes, the crinkled nose when his teammates did something “uncool.” _That’s so lame, Tooru._

“What are you smiling at the ground for, Dumbass Kageyama?” Hinata punches him in the ribs and he recoils. “Look up, pay attention. Daichi-san’s here.”

“Daichi-san?”

“Yes,” Hinata’s starting to sound a bit impatient now. “Come on. I’ll race you over.”

Hinata goes off. Kageyama’s about to yell at him for getting a head start when Takeru finishes his first lap and stops at the gym entrance again. “You’re not supposed to be here! Go away!”

“Oikawa!” Coach is running over as well. “An extra five laps.”

“But Coach! He’s the enemy!”

“Is this any way to talk to your uncle, Takeru? I’m hurt.” That voice. Kageyama won’t look up. He feels like he’s deep underwater and someone just shut off the valve to his oxygen tank, cutting off his supply of air.

“You’re twenty-five!” Takeru still hasn’t started lap two.

“I’m not too old to have _feelings_ , Takeru,” Oikawa-san says. “And anyway, I’m not here to spy on you. I’m here to challenge my cute underclassman to a match.”

Kageyama can feel Oikawa-san looking at him. There’s something huge swelling in his chest. But he can’t – he _can’t_. Is this what waiting feels like? Is this Oikawa-san catching up?

“He’s not your cute anything!” Takeru is saying. “He’s the setter for Team Japan. He’s way cooler than you!”

Hinata, having beaten Kageyama in this one not-race, snorts.

“Yes,” Oikawa-san says. “I know. All the same.”

And their eyes meet. And it’s natural and familiar and almost easy. Oikawa-san’s dressed for battle, that is to say, a t-shirt and shorts and kneepad and brace. He’s got a ball balanced with one hand on his hip. His gaze is challenging.

Like this, nothing has changed.

But everything has. Because Oikawa-san smiles, tightly. He’s nervous, Kageyama realizes. Oikawa-san’s other hand is fisted into his shorts, his fingers disappearing into the fabric. It’s like that time in July, when Oikawa-san stood outside Kageyama’s apartment after the Meiji game, when Kageyama had asked Oikawa-san if they were dating and Oikawa-san had just kissed him. That time when Kageyama had thought he and Oikawa-san were finally on the same page.

What will it be this time?

“This morning you said you had to study and absolutely refused to come,” Iwaizumi-san, standing next to Oikawa-san, has the most unimpressed expression on his face. “And now you’re challenging Kageyama to a match.”

“I’m human and fickle, Iwa-chan.” Oikawa-san is still looking at Kageyama. There are butterflies in Kageyama’s stomach. “Accept it.”

They’re real, the butterflies. It’s real.

“Two days ago you were trying to convince me you were an alien from the far side of the void,” Iwaizumi-san says. He bends down to redo one of his shoelaces. “Who’s going to be on your team, anyway, if Kageyama does accept your challenge. This is a team sport, you know?”

“This is also practice time for our team,” Daichi-san, on Iwaizumi-san’s other side, muses. “You can’t just butt in and interfere. You’re the enemy!”

“He’s the enemy!” Hinata singsongs, looking way too delighted for Kageyama’s liking.

“Enemy!” Oikawa-san gasps. “I thought you loved me, Dai-chan.”

Daichi-san rolls his eyes. “Love is too strong a word. And anyway, Kageyama still hasn’t agreed to play you.”

“Tobio-chan has never backed down from an opportunity to beat me. It’s one of his favourite hobbies!”

This is it. They’re finally playing each other again. Kageyama licks his lips. His throat is so dry. “If Coach says it’s okay, then I’ll show you everything I’ve got.”

Oikawa-san’s eyes flash, and he smiles. Fuck, if he doesn’t have the most amazing smile.

Coach sighs. “I suppose it’ll be good practice for the boys.”

“I want to be on Tobio-chan’s team,” Takeru pipes up.

“It’s Kageyama-senpai to you, Takeru.” Oikawa-san says sharply.

Coach looks like he wants to laugh. “You’ll be on the team I assign you, Oikawa.”

Oikawa-san blinks, like he’s a little disoriented by the way Coach is calling Takeru ‘Oikawa.’ Then he turns back to Kageyama. His fingers are free of his shorts. They’re all taped up. “It’s 1-1 Tobio-chan,” Oikawa-san says. “I won’t lose to you.”

“I won’t lose,” Kageyama says, simply, stepping into the gym. For the first time, he wonders what sort of butterflies are fluttering in his stomach. He decides that, for today, they must be the beautiful kind.

~

It’s different, this time, with kids swarming between them and old teammates on both sides of the court. Kageyama isn’t playing to win – there is nothing to win. But he also isn’t playing to lose. He is just playing Oikawa-san with Hinata, Tsukishima, and Yamaguchi on his team; no crowds, no interviews, no public persona. And that feels as natural as breathing.

Kageyama gets to serve first.

He concentrates, picturing the new form he’d been trying to perfect for months, a new serve he’d been trying to come up with. He tosses, and jumps.

“That’s new,” Tsukishima muses, as the serve floats towards Daichi-san and then drifts away at the last millisecond.

There’s a swooping sensation in Kageyama’s chest. It’s new. It’s his own serve.

Oikawa-san sends the ball back under the net to Kageyama. He grins. “Not bad, Tobio-chan.”

“One more,” Kageyama says.

“Keep your flirting out of the court, would you?” Iwaizumi-san hisses. “There are children.”

“It’s just volleyball, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa-san says. “What are you talking about?”

Kageyama serves again, this time aiming for Karasuno’s ace. Kobayashi gets the ball haphazardly into the air, and Oikawa-san is running, running, running.

It’s the horizontal toss. The ball shoots towards Iwaizumi-san in parallel to the net, and Iwaizumi-san slams the ball past the blockers and into that spot the team couldn’t cover. One-all.

“Not bad, Oikawa-san,” Kageyama says.

“How rude,” Iwaizumi-san says. “I was the one who got the point.”

“It was a team effort!” Oikawa-san points at Kobayashi. “Good dig.” And Kobayashi blushes and puffs up with pride.

It’s Iwaizumi-san’s serve next. Yamaguchi receives it, and Kageyama sends a quick towards Hinata, but Hinata’s jumped too high and misses.

“Getting rusty, are you?” Kageyama asks Hinata.

“You wish.”

“Is that the best you’ve got?” Daichi-san jeers from the other side of the net, and Oikawa-san pulls a face at them. “That’s so lame.”

Iwaizumi-san serves again. This time, Kageyama receives the ball, sending it up high to –

“I got it!” Takeru yells, and leaps.

The ball goes back to Kageyama, and he does a backrow spike right down the line. Oikawa-san dives for it and misses it by an inch. His hair is in his face as he gets up, so Kageyama can’t see what his expression is.

Then Oikawa-san whistles. “That was some spike.”

“And some toss!” Takeru interjects.

Oikawa-san brushes the hair out of his face. His expression is fond, soft. “It was incredible.”

And just like that, all the butterflies in Kageyama’s stomach rise, their wings beat and beat and beat. This is all he wanted, to play against Oikawa-san on the court without either of them trying to leap across a chasm to catch up. To look at the other person across the net without having to be scared of him disappearing. To watch him calculate and wait and strike and to be on the receiving end of his amazingness.

To be incredible without having to be afraid.

“You’re brilliant,” Kageyama blurts out, and Oikawa-san stills.

Then he smiles. “You’re not so bad yourself, Tobio-chan.”

Kageyama’s team loses the game. Hinata sulks, but the rest of the team take it into stride. Coach gathers Karasuno into a post-scrimmage huddle, discussing what worked and what didn’t, and what the team could learn from the “elders.”

The rest of them start clearing up the gym, picking up balls that had gone flying, mopping the floor clean of sweat. Kageyama busies himself with taking down the net, unwinding the rope that tied the net to its post slowly.

He’s so aware of the person approaching him: the squeak of his shoes across the gym floor, the sight of his hand bunching up his shorts, the smell of sweat and salonpas, leather and gym disinfectant, the clean, aseptic scent of the astrophysics lab he works in.

“Tobio-chan.” Oikawa-san stops right in front on the other side of the net. He’s so close. If the nylon wasn’t in between them, Kageyama would have felt his breath on his neck.

“Oikawa-san.”

“The score - ”

“- is 2-1.” Kageyama focuses on unwinding the net.

“I was going to say it doesn’t matter,” Oikawa-san says, “for this game anyway. It would have been good either way. I liked playing you.”

Kageyama watches as Oikawa-san curls and uncurls his fingers. “What are you saying?”

“I’m just saying,” the fabric of the shorts crumples under Oikawa-san’s fingers, “that you’re much more fun to play when you’re not copying me, genius.”

Kageyama’s so used to this by now. He reaches out and tugs oikawa-san’s hand away from his clothes. “No, what are you saying?”

“God, you want me to spell it out for you?” Kageyama knows Oikawa-san is trying to sound exasperated, but it’s the way he’s pausing between words. There’s too much deliberation.

“Yes.” And he wants - he wants Oikawa-san to know how important this is to him, to have Oikawa-san say that he likes Kageyama, no ifs or ands or buts. No volleyball metaphors.

Kageyama lets the net fall. There’s nothing in between them now.

Oikawa-san stares at how Kageyama’s still holding his hand. Kageyama’s holding his breath, waiting. Oikawa-san seems to be holding his breath too.

Then he exhales, and looks up. “I like you.”

“I like you, too.” Kageyama can’t say it quickly enough. He wants to say it again and again until Oikawa-san gets tired of it, but it doesn’t seem like Oikawa-san will get tired of it anytime soon. He’s grinning. He’s holding Kageyama’s hand.

_Click._

And Yachi’s there, winding up her film for the next shot. “That was kind of cute,” she says.

Oikawa-san blushes. Yes, Kageyama thinks, it is kind of cute.

“Have you been here all along?” He asks.

“Yachi adjusts a knob on her camera. “Yeah, I was on the stands, photographing you.” She points to a spot behind the black banner that says “飛べ”.

“Like you used to,” Kageyama says.

“Yes,” Yachi says, moving towards the rest of the team now. “But I feel like my photos will turn out different.”

Kageyama turns back to Oikawa-san. “Come to her art show with me.”

Oikawa-san blinks, and for one stunning, heartbreaking moment, Kageyama is afraid that this is all a dream, that Oikawa-san will pull away and call him names and say, “no way, Tobio-chan.”

But Oikawa-san just tightens his grip on Kageyama’s hand. “You – you still want me? After – ” he breaks off. And he looks small, vulnerable, and, oh, Kageyama can see it now. The fear in Oikawa-san’s eyes, of not being good enough. It had been there all along.

Kageyama’s well aware that the entire team is watching them, but he reaches up with his other hand to touch Oikawa-san’s cheek. “I still want you,” he says. “I want you.”

The gym bursts into cheers. “I want you, too,” Oikawa-san says. He sounds wonderstruck, and Kageyama is, too, a little bit, and it’s like they’re both coming out of their cocoons, taking in the world around them, a first time all over again.

~

The old maple Kageyama passes by on his way to the train station is drenched in the bright red of autumn again. The sky is a beautiful, endless blue, cloudless for miles. The sun shines shyly on the pavement. It’s like the beginning of something new.

Ando always says October is the month in which he feels limitless, like he could do anything and everything. And this year, Kageyama feels the same. They had won an international competition. They had achieved the impossible in September. And October, well. October is the month in which they will square their shoulders and go even farther.

Yachi’s art show is in Yokohama. It will be Kageyama’s first time there. When he gets on the Metro, he pulls out the map app on his phone to check the address of the art gallery. The doors open and close behind him, letting in gusts of the crisp autumn breeze. Kageyama leans his head against the window and watches the city go by, listening to the train as it rattles, syncopated like the trains that go past his Miyagi bedroom every day.

The sky has faded to pale pinks and oranges by the time Kageyama reaches the venue. The art gallery is delicately lit, and Kageyama can see Yachi inside, smiling at two old women pointing at an art piece. Yachi looks radiant, and she lights up even more when she spots Kageyama standing awkwardly outside.

“Kageyama-kun!” She runs out to hug him, squeezing tightly before she lets him go. “You’ve learned how to tie your tie properly.”

Kageyama tugs at the tie, midnight blue with gold planets and shooting stars printed on it. “Someone taught me how,” he says.

“Someone?” Yachi repeats. “Is someone here with you?”

Kageyama frowns. “He’s meeting me here.”

“That’s good.” Yachi’s looking at him all soft and fond. “I’m glad he’s coming. I think he’d like what’s become of my project.”

“On beautiful things?” Kageyama asks, wondering if the project is still about that.

“That’s right,” Yachi says. She takes his hand and tugs him inside. “Let me show you how it’s turned out.”

She leads him into a corridor. One side is lined with sketches, the other is all glass windows overlooking a park. Outside, the last vestiges of sunlight dance over the tops of the trees, and two butterflies flutter in the semi-darkness.

Yachi takes Kageyama to the first sketch. It’s a portrait of a boy. He’s young, his fringe uneven. He’s got a towel around his neck and a uniform that’s made up of news articles about the competitions from his Kitaichi days. The boy’s got a starved expression on his face. He looks gaunt and hungry, fearful and full of longing. He’s –

“It’s me,” Kageyama says, surprised. He looks so young in the drawing. Yachi’s done a spotlight on him, too, played with the shadows quite a bit in the background, the darkness falling around him like a cape.

“That was you,” Yachi agrees. “Ten years ago.”

Kageyama moves on to the next picture. It’s him again, in his first year of Karasuno. He’s midair, doing a toss. The toss is for Hinata, Kageyama knows, because this is the pose Yachi had used in their first volleyball fundraiser poster.

“It looks different in grey,” Kageyama says. “Not a bad different,” he adds quickly. “It just is.”

Yachi bites her lip, smiling. “It’s a little bit of change.”

The next one is Kageyama in third year, almost a graduate, jumping again. His hair is shorter now, and he’s smiling. Hinata had commented how scary his smile had looked, but Kageyama doesn’t think it’s that bad. The volleyball, coming straight towards the viewer, has a logo of a crow stamped on it.

Then it’s Kageyama straight out of high school, in his first season of international volleyball. He hadn’t been eating well that year, despite the intense training, and Yachi had depicted him jumping again, this time in a meeker body, with less height. This Kageyama is going to miss the ball, and the next one, and the next.

And suddenly, there’s a burst of light. The second to last picture is Kageyama in Harajuku, with the surprised expression on his face. The sketch is made to mimic an overexposed photograph. It’s too bright, too much. Kageyama looks like he’d just come out of a press interview.

In the last picture, the lighting is right again, and Kageyama is in colour. He’s jumping, going for a block, his eyes rising above the top of the net. The hunger is still there, but the fear is gone. He looks…

“You’re beautiful.”

Oikawa-san is behind him. Kageyama can feel Oikawa-san leaning over his shoulder to take a closer look.

“You’re here,” he breathes.

“Here I am,” Oikawa-san says. Yachi’s gone. There’s no one in the corridor with them, so Oikawa-san presses his lips to Kageyama’s ear.

Kageyama’s breath catches. “I’m so different from the first-year Kitaichi Kageyama. I look almost the same, but I’m different.”

“Same bad haircut, I think,” Oikawa-san mutters, but he kisses Kageyama again. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“You think so?” Kageyama asks. He turns his cheek so he’s facing Oikawa-san.

“Change is painful. But it is beautiful,” Oikawa-san says. He’s so close, and he’s looking at Kageyama, almost like he’s in awe. “You’re beautiful.”

And Kageyama looks at Oikawa-san, feeling the same sort of wonder and admiration he’d felt for him since their first days of volleyball together, and says, “I think you’re beautiful, too.”


End file.
